


An Awesome Wave

by heli0s



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alt-J Lyrics, Alternate Universe - College/University, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, Exploring Sexuality, F/F, F/M, Fluid Sexuality, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, Second and Third Person POV, Slow Burn, Sort of Complicated, acid trip, bisexual reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-07 16:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heli0s/pseuds/heli0s
Summary: People say the friendships you make in college can often be life-long.In their senior year at university, Steve introduces Bucky to a friend whose life is calm on the surface but turbulent underneath. Their journey leads them to discover things about themselves and each other they never imagined were possible.Also known as Sex, Drugs… Poetry?





	1. Intro/Ripe and Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! A lot of notes on this fic: 
> 
> First and foremost, all "poetry" and chapter titles are credited to Alt-J, a fantastic band.  
> The POV will fluctuate between Third Person and Second Person, and it will sort of make sense why. You should assume that all characters are unreliable narrators...lol. I'll explain more when we get there! Until then, I hope you enjoy it, it's going to be a long and bumpy ride!

 

 

Bucky thinks this is the darkest fucking coffeehouse he’s ever been to as he whacks his thigh on yet another table on his way to the restroom. Steve dragged him out of their apartment this evening against his will for espresso and … poetry? Bucky checks his mental notes, yeah, poetry was right.

“Come on, Buck. I think you’ll really appreciate it. It’s low-key, and I really want to support a friend.” That over-excited, All-American smile got him again. He hated disappointing Steve and after two recent rejections of going out, Bucky knows the poor boy couldn’t stand another one. Even worse, he might go off on one of his lectures about how his best pal shouldn’t be cooped up in a dingy apartment all day, melancholy be damned. Bucky can see it now, chest puffed out, fists on his hips, and that twitching vein on his forehead Steve gets when he’s particularly displeased.

He’s glad at least that this time, it’s not a frat party or a foam party or a dance party. Steve’s finally caught the hint that Bucky needs mellow vibes after one of the summer bashes on campus. When the foam got in his eyes in the middle of the quad, Bucky started screaming so loudly campus police was dispatched.

As he washes his hands, he looks in the dirty mirror at himself, lightly stubbled with a growing mess of hair in-between lengths. He hadn’t cut it since before the break-up, and that was almost half a year ago now. Christ, it’s long, he thinks, blowing a strand out of his face. He splashes water all over himself on accident when he’s too distracted thinking about how stupid he feels at a damn poetry reading.

 

Bucky order a beer at the bar and makes his way back to the table, thankful that his college town offered such gems- littered with coffee shops and breweries. This fine establishment served _both._ Steve to his side, munches happily on a blueberry scone and takes huge gulps of an Americano. Bucky can smell the cinnamon stick in it—Steve’s odd little habit. He scans the room to check out the assembly and it’s what he expected of a night like this- art kids and Lit nerds, journaling at their tables, stepping outside to chain-smoke cigarettes, sipping tiny cups of espresso.

Bucky fits in a little more with dark jeans and a red flannel, but Steve sticks out like a sore thumb in this crowd, a huge mass of muscles stretched over a thin blue shirt and cuffed sweatpants. His once remarkably skinny friend hit a late growth spurt in the summer between their senior year of high school and freshman year of college and has now fleshed out so much that it still catches Bucky by surprise from time to time. Just last week Bucky woke up to Steve’s half-dressed figure in the doorway with a plate of French toast and almost shit himself. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

“Breakfast, Buck?” He had called.

“Jesus, man, I thought we were gettin robbed!”

Steve went from mousy art nerd to oversized jock in two months. As a senior, he now captains the rugby team and plays flag football once a week on the campus quad. Along with spending multiple hours in the gym with Bucky, he’s nearly a certified meat-head. Yet still, like his old self, he signs up for those anti-police protests and social justice groups that meet in the library and eats on campus with a sketchbook under his arm.

 

Someone comes stage and recites a quiet sonnet under the gaze of thirty-five people, hiccupping in-between stanzas due to nerves and Bucky physically winces. _Yikes_. There’s scattered applause as they step down and Steve punches his arm lightly before whispering, “There she is! She’s _good_.” 

As Bucky’s gaze drifts back onto the dim spotlight shining on a single microphone perched atop its stand, the figure of a young woman walks up, a slip of paper between her fingers. She’s wearing black jeans and a white t-shirt, cropped to where it lands right above the button of her pants. A sliver of skin can be seen from his vantage point. The thick-rimmed glasses sitting on her nose bridge makes her look like a modern-day librarian; it’s fashionable, he thinks. He hopes she doesn’t flub too because Bucky catches secondhand embarrassment easier than he’d like.

“Hi everyone, thank you. This is called “Ripe and Ruin”,” She speaks with a soft but slightly raspy voice, having to clear it a few times before she actually begins.  

_She-she-she-she only ev-ev-ver-ver-ver-ver  
Walks to-to count-count her steps._

Bucky’s not sure what he’s supposed to be listening for as he glances around. Steve’s eyes have dropped, swinging like pendulums slowly back and forth, and the edge of his mouth picks up in a half-smile as he intently follows each staccato of the speaker’s voice. The stumbling of the words, Bucky thinks, is deliberate but he feels himself drift off as he loses the pace of her verses.

_…And before the next nine right and nine left_

Steve is nodding along now, and Bucky stares upward intently, trying to focus on her words. He watches her mouth, hoping to parse it better if he can read it from her lips.

 _She looks up-up at the blue—!_ .. _at the_ _blue_ …

The girl suddenly freezes as she locks her gaze on their table. She quickly blinks a few times before muttering apology. Clearing her throat, she returns to her folded note once more.

 _And whispers to all of the above:_  
Don’t let me drown, don’t breathe alone  
No kicks, no pangs, no broken bones—

It’s caught Steve’s attention too and he’s looking up now at Bucky, who notices the slightest flush of rose blossoming under the illuminated flesh of her cheeks. Steve shrugs and leans forward onto his hand, dreamily gazing at the poet in front of him. Bucky snorts at the image of his friend, falling headfirst for yet another girl. Steve Rogers, no matter how beefy he might be now, was a young scrawny boy, lovesick as ever.

_Never let me sink, always feel at home  
No sticks, no shanks, and no stones._

_Never leave it too late, always enjoy the taste_  
Of the great-great-great grey world of hearts  
As all dogs everywhere bark-bark-bark-bark.

Bucky’s beginning to hear the meaning rising from each inhale she takes, like a movie unfolding before his eyes he’s seeing an image, taking in the atmosphere, gears in his brain clicking along to every stuttering syllable. She takes a pause.

_It's worth knowing,_

_Like all good fruit, the balance of life  
Is in the ripe and ruin._

Something sticks there, in that last sentence. It gores itself in Bucky’s throat as she slightly bows to the round of applause from the audience and steps off stage to join a table of similarly dressed college students. Steve waves from their table and Bucky watches her smile at them. The rest of her colleagues whisper into her ear and he sees her shrugging and gesturing at them.

“Let’s go over in a bit after the last presenter!” Steve whispers, “Hey, what’d you think of that poem?” His hands are clasped together and he’s practically beaming so brightly he’s ruining the sulky vibe of the place.

“I don’t know, Stevie, can’t say I know enough about poetry to have an opinion about it,” Bucky admits, feeling more insecure than usual.

“Well, what’d you _feel_?”

There’s some shushing sent their way from a table in the back and Steve quiets down for the time being. Bucky scoffs at Steve’s miffed expression on his right- nose crinkled up and petulant mouth pulled at the corner. Bucky pulls from his beer and exhales, deep in thought. What _did_ he feel? That line, about ripe and ruin being the balance of life, it made his chest itch with disappointment and anger.

Dot’s face begins to materialize and swirl behind his eyelids. Bucky feels the last six months spool up his chest in an abrupt moment of sorrow, the dissolution of his last relationship wailing a death-rattle reminder.

Dolores, his ex-girlfriend, went for a summer overseas and he got dropped off like discarded luggage as soon as she met someone else. They’d been together for over a year and Bucky had really, really, thought he could settle down with her, as naive as it had been (and it was). He’d been such a flight-risk to girls since he started dating at _fourteen_ , Christ, but Dolores- or Dot, as he called her, was going to be _it_ for him. She was gorgeous, spoiled, sultry, uncontrollable… and Christ on a cracker, her body was spectacular.

But they fought all the time about absolutely _nothing_.

 _When Dot was around, Steve was nowhere to be found_. It was a running gag, Bucky had said, but he always felt a little bad about it. They didn’t like each other, and they weren’t going to pretend to. Dolores never kept her opinions to herself, and Steve Rogers, even when he was a skinny little bully-magnet, was too stupid to keep his mouth shut. He tried to, at first, Bucky recalls, but it didn’t last long. Bucky hated fighting with Steve, too, so they came to the conclusion that the two of them would just avoid each other. And Bucky had to figure out how to spend time with them separately.

 

Maybe he deserved it, Bucky had thought, when she called him that night to say she wanted a “break”. Bucky himself bounced from girl to girl like a pogo stick and now he was getting a taste of his own medicine. He tried to come back from it, date again, screw around, give ‘em a good taste of the ol’ James Barnes razzle-dazzle, and it was quite a bit of a success, but he just couldn’t enjoy it the same. He was always too eager to kick them out the door right after the deed. He much rather just hang out with Steve, anyway.

Meaningless sex bored him. And the realization of that truth churned with the beer in his belly.

 

“Buck?” Steve is calling and Bucky descends back to Earth, wiping Dot’s face from his peripheral.

“Mm.” He grunts and takes another swig, “What next?”

“Come on.”

“How do you even know this girl?” Bucky asks with narrowed eyes as they push their chairs in and take their cups with them. He hopes this isn’t one of those unsubtle Steve tricks where he pretends to take Bucky somewhere just to set him up with a gal. He slept with all of them, but poor Steve lost a few friends in the process. He always scolded Bucky afterwards, but like a baby with poor object permanence, Bucky could count on him to try again next month.

The last poet had walked off and the lights began to intensify in the room. Bucky thanks the gods that he doesn’t have to keep stubbing his toe on stool legs.

“I met her last year at a reading. I was out with that sketch book group in the fall. Said hi afterwards. Kept in touch since.”

“A whole year? This is my first time meeting her? You keepin’ secrets, Rogers?”

Steve’s expression turns into something that borders both annoyance and resentment, “Don’t start, Buck. You know I would have never heard the end of it from Dot.”

He wasn’t wrong. If Dolores was anything, she was jealous. Bucky had to catch on _real_ quick that talking to other women was an action he needed to relearn. At first he fought it, but over time, she won. She always did.

He groans at the recollection and Steve forgives him right away, throwing an arm over his shoulder as they step into the back-booth corner.

“Hey, Steve! Thank you so much for coming.”

Steve gives her his brightest smile and a quick hug before standing back next to Bucky. There are other greetings passed back and forth as Steve seems to be friendly with a few of the people there.

“You were so great.” He’s glowing again. _Oh, brother_ , Bucky thinks.   
“Oh, hey. This is my best pal, Bucky.” Steve lets Bucky extend his hand to shake her small one.  

“Thanks for coming, Bucky. It’s _so_ good to meet you!” She’s smiling wide but suddenly starts to stammer, “It’s been a while since my last reading so it’s just nice to have support.” She tucks a cigarette behind an ear pierced multiple times, there’s a single bar running through two holes in her cartilage and Bucky watches the light bounce off the metal.

“You’re in luck, it’s my first.” He grins back and she breaks out into an even wider smile, if possible. Her friends behind her ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ amiably, a sea of faces with colorful hair and lip rings.

“Well, fuck, man, let’s celebrate! You’re one of us now.” Someone in the back shouts with a laugh.

 

Before he knows it, Bucky’s walking out of the coffeeshop and heading towards a dive bar at the end of the street with a group of strangers. They’re all taunting each other and waxing on about alliteration and analyzing Sylvia Plath. He has absolutely no stinkin’ idea what they are saying. Steve straggles behind his poet as she lights her cigarette and takes a drag, smoke flowing out of her nose in a long stream. It makes Bucky remember the days when he was a chain-smoker, and he suddenly feels the itch to grab one himself. Oh, God, that bitter burn, that head-high, that fucking sweet punch right in the lungs.

 _Pull yourself together, Barnes_ , he thinks. It was such a hard habit to kick and he was going to keep it in the past. His last cigarette was the night Dot had broken up with him when he inhaled three-quarters of a pack in an agitated period of grief and vomited over the balcony. After that, he threw the rest away and never picked up another one.

Those bad memories and habits can walk hand in hand right into hell.

“Thought you were gonna quit.” Steve’s taken on his Captain voice, stern and commanding. He does it all the time with the rugby team when the boys get into fights and trouble. Bucky raises an eyebrow as he cranes his neck towards them pacing near the back.

“I know. It’s tough. You’ll be happy to hear that it’s only three a day now?” The girl fiddles with her phone before putting away in the back pocket of her jeans and shoving her hands in the front pockets, cigarette softly smoldering in the corner of her mouth.

“I guess I am.” Steve finally replies before turning his attention to Bucky, “Bucky used to smoke, isn’t that right?” He knew that was destined to come up sooner or later. Bucky always serves as the example Captain Rogers gives to his friends when he’s trying to life-coach them. Steve tugs on his shirt to draw his attention.

“Yeah. Stopped half a year ago.”

“You’re a hero. Truly.” She takes another drag and savors the bitter burn of tobacco, crinkling her nose, “You’ll have to teach me one day. Later, you know? Like, much later.”

Those within earshot snort at the response and roll their eyes. Bucky feels himself do the same as she takes another deep inhale and lets the smoke roll out of her smile through her teeth.

 

As they line up outside the bar and pull their ID’s out of their wallets, Bucky nudges Steve. “Glad I came,  pal. I’ll get your first one.” Because he is. Sometimes he falls into the pattern of being shut-up at home, blinds drawn, door locked, typing papers in the dark that he forgets how nice it can be when he leaves. Sometimes Bucky realizes that it’s a cycle he can only break if he decides to take those little steps out with Steve, like tonight.

He’s met with another stunning smile from his friend and Bucky thinks he can probably do this more often. They’d traded roles in their older age from their high school days; Bucky can’t remember all the times _he’s_ had to literally drag Steve to football games and movies in attempts get him out of a depressive slump. There’s a certain Junior Homecoming dance in his memory that’s marked with Steve’s tears.

Other than going out on one-off dates and meeting a few hook ups here and there, Bucky hasn’t really spent any quality time with others. He remembers how much of a social person he used to be, before Dot. The crisp evening air and background chatter makes him smile just a little bit. Steve ducks in first with the rest of the crowd. Bucky gives the bouncer his ID who barely gives it a glance. He looks old enough with his dark stubble and broad shoulders.

 

The jingle of someone’s phone going off catches Bucky’s attention and he turns to see a reflective flash of eyeglasses stepping away from the entrance.

“Sorry,” she says, pulling the device to her chest, “I’ll catch up in a sec. Gotta take this.”

 

He steps inside the bar and grabs two beers, letting her friends know she’s on the phone. Steve grumbles into his drink at the news. Bucky’s confused as he rolls up his sleeves to quarter length, past his forearms, feeling the warmth of the small space.

“This shit happens all the time,” A girl with a pixie cut mutters, blowing an annoyed sigh. “It’s gonna be a while, so get comfy.”

They slide into a booth with the group and Bucky is seated between Steve and the girl with the pixie cut, Jess. “What’s going on?” He asks Steve, who throws his head back defeatedly on the cushion of the booth. Jess clicks her glass down and the rest of the table join her with complaints.

“Her boyfriend, Alex. They’re probably fighting again. They always do.”

“Unless they’re _fucking_.” Someone with dyed blue hair supplements. “I lived with her for a couple of months. They just fucking go at it and then he disappears for weeks.”

Bucky looks back and forth, feeling weird that he’s caught in a moment that seems honestly too personal for him to be a part of. It also scratches a bit at him because of how familiar this story feels. Steve on his left is chugging his beer at this point, “How long they been together again?” Steve asks.

Oh no, here he comes, big Captain ready to save a damsel in distress.

“Forever.” A couple says in unison, two girls with matching bangs- one black, the other a lighter brown. They’re holding hands on the table but look equally displeased. “Four years since she’s been in high school.”

“And you _all_ hate him? Poor fuck.”

“It’s a popular opinion.” Jess pipes up again, looking at Bucky as if to warn him _don’t stick up for that guy._

“She never talks about him.” Steve sighs, “Sometimes you forget she’s got a fella until--”

He’s cut off by loud cussing from Jess, who turns her phone around in her hand and shoves it into everyone’s face at the table. The girls with bangs, Zoe and Elliot, a bleach-blonde guy, Maxwell, and Steve all groan loudly in unison before each tearing off into their own tangent full of expletives.

“This. Shit.” Jess hisses, “This shit happens all the time.”

Bucky looks over the screen where a blue bubble has popped up under Jess’ text thread. It reads:

 _Sorry, gotta go._  
Please tell everyone thank you for me and that I’m really really sorry!   
Thanks J, you’re the best xx.

 

He can feel Steve slumping next to him as he swallows the rest of his beer. Bucky does the same and shuffles out of the booth with their two empty glasses to get the next round. The room suddenly feels smaller, the people too close, and Bucky cracks his knuckles one by one to distract himself from clamming up. It’s too familiar- the text message, the discretion of a relationship, the disappearance. Dot’s face glowers against his eyelids again, that sneer he became so accustomed to seeing when he’d mention hanging out with Steve on a night she wanted to come over. Bucky hears himself groan at the memories.

Back in the booth, Steve enters a conversation about the dean’s recent e-mail to the student body about raising tuition to build a new football stadium and he’s getting so fired up Bucky can see people by the door gawking at them. He tries to listen to it- something, anything to get his mind off the jumbled mess of his unease.

As he watches the bartender pour their stouts, leveling his hand and tilting the cup with the stream, Bucky thinks about the last line of the poem.

 _Like all good fruit, the balance of life_  
_Is in the ripe and ruin._

Bucky wonders, with two glasses in his hand, making his way precariously back through the throng of boys with pool cues and girls in heels and skirts, if the ripeness of his life would ever arrive, because he’s pretty sure the ruin is already at his door.

 

 


	2. Nara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Name] invites Steve and Bucky to a party where they meet The Twins and Natasha.

 

The next time Steve gets a text from [Name] is nearly a month later, a string of apologies followed by an invitation out. It’s a little pathetic that he’s immediately elated but he just can’t help the way he feels. Simply put, he likes her. He likes her quite a lot, and he’s thought about it multiple times since their first meeting.

He recalls the evening in the quiet corner of the library with his sketch group. Their outdoor session got rained on and they’d taken shelter in the back of the library to practice perspective, happening to be in the vicinity of a poetry group that was also in session.

Steve remembers the slight voice and words that pulled his attention away from the _scritch-scratch_ of his pencil. He’d heard poems before, and read them multiple times, but he hasn’t been struck like this. It was a simple little thing, some quiet stanzas about a lover, and before he knew it, Steve had come over and sat cross-legged in the circle and practiced foreshortening with the lines of her worn-down shoe.

He still remembers them, those five lines that made his heart bloom with hope that someone might feel those words for him:

  _I’ve discovered a man like no other man_  
_I've found a love to love like no other can._  
_He’s found me, my Aslan._

 _Hallelujah, Hallelujah_  
_To be a deer in Nara_.

He caught her at the end and asked her what being a deer in Nara meant. Aslan was a reference he understood and appreciated- feeling a love so strong to compare him to a deity was a wonderful display of passion. Steve happily said so as she shyly thanked him. They analyzed the poem together, against the backdrop of bookshelves.

“Nara is a place in Japan,” she said between smiles, shocked at the compliment of someone being so interested in her little writings. “In Nara, deer are treated almost... as sacred? They’re loved and nourished by the inhabitants and tourists.. so..” She shook her head and waved her fingers around as if shaking cobwebs off them—a moment of gathering her thoughts.

She tried again, “The poem was written for a friend of mine. He recently came out but… unfortunately grew up in a very religious and conservative household. During the writing process it became a little personal for me too.”

Steve tilted his head as a gesture for her to continue. “It’s beautiful,” he said, “Are you struggling with…?” He trailed off, not quite knowing how to address what he wanted to ask.

“Oh no!” She laughed, “It’s not about _my_ sexuality…” A flush crept onto her cheeks, “But I started to think about how it feels to have such an intense love that keeps slipping from your grasp. You just want to be a deer in Nara, living easily, almost worshiped the same way you worship them.” She huffed sadly at the end before blinking back up at Steve, “Sorry” -- a hasty and unnecessary apology.

He thought she looked _so pretty_ when she talked about her writing, sweet little smile, sparkling, joyful eyes, and he was a little beside himself that day as he tried to reel it back in. He wasn’t a teenager anymore; he couldn’t go falling for every girl who was _pretty_. There were frankly too many in the world for that. He thought it would be too forward to ask her if she was single, and too gaudy to give her his number. So instead, he kept talking to her about her writing.

Steve wanted, at least, to make a new friend. It made sense: he liked poetry and was always eager to join another social group during his time in college, and this was the perfect opportunity to continue those efforts.

“I think the coolest part about poetry is understanding the language.” He finally commented after a long while, “And now that I do, I like it even more. I get it.”

She only laughed and thanked him yet again. Then she invited him to their next session in the library. When she waved goodbye and left, he felt himself spiraling off to somewhere sunny and warm.

That night, Steve dreamed about a grassy hill, overlooking a pond. Tall and colorful trees of red and orange surrounded him. At his hand, nudging, was the soft spotted coat of a sweet-eyed doe.

\--

 

“So what, you sweet on her or somethin’?” Bucky asks him as they brush their teeth in the small confined space of their shared bathroom. Steve is wearing well-pressed jeans today, a change from his usual attire of crinkled joggers. He’s tried on three shirts this evening yet hasn’t settled on any. He stands tall in front of the wide mirror before spitting.

“Mmf- don’t start with me, mister. She’s got a guy. I like her just fine but not like that.”

Bucky taps him on the leg, hand hitting well-starched jeans.

“Yeah? ‘S that why you got your big boy pants on tonight?”

A swift punch to his arm shuts Bucky up, but the shit-eating grin lingers afterward. Steve carefully combs his hair in the mirror while Bucky goes to find a shirt for both of them. They had been invited to a small house party tonight, small enough for Bucky to feel comfortable, and lively enough for Steve to be excited about. He admits to himself that he’s excited to see her, yes, but he knows how to act.

Bucky was the one who chased girls even if they were spoken for. Steve was not that kind of guy.

 

They arrive at the little house around 9:00, each carrying a six-pack of local beer. Cars are parked like sardines up and down the street and since they lived not too far away, the boys had forgone the trouble of finding parking and instead walked the 25 minutes. It’s a cool, breezy September night anyway. Twangy bass lines ooze from the windows and the slightly cracked front door.

There are people outside smoking on the porch and drinking. Steve recognizes Jess from the other week who raises her beer in acknowledgement. Bucky waves too.

 _Good_ , Steve thinks, _familiar faces._ He always keeps tabs on Bucky when they go out these days, making sure to leave when he starts feeling too cagey. Drinking usually helps him loosen up, so Steve’s overjoyed when he sees the excessive amounts of beer just from the front lawn.

Inside, a table has been set up for beer pong with two teams cheering and howling. The couch is pushed against the wall where a someone strums plucky notes on his guitar with friends to his side playing a video game. Steve sets the six pack on the counter in the kitchen next to a girl sitting in a flowy brown dress.

“Hello,” she greets, leaning her head and letting long strands of russet hair slide over her shoulder. Her lips are filled in with dark-red lipstick and her hazel eyes almost seem to glow red in the kitchen light.

“Hey! Is this your place?” Steve reaches his hand out to shake hers, giving her their names.

“Yes.” She smiles before leaning her head to the side, eyes narrowed and looking him up and down. “I’ve heard of you.”

Steve picks up a slight European accent from her, but he can’t quite pinpoint where. It was possibly... more Eastern? “You must be the… how did she say... ‘soft jock’ boyfriends?”

Bucky, beside him, lets out a low rumble of wicked laughter at the absurd description. Steve is going to hear that one a lot, he thinks.

“ _Wanda_!”

Bucky lands on the fridge door when the familiar frame of Steve’s poet sharply turns the corner in what looks to be rollerblades. He hasn’t seen a pair of those since he was twelve. She slams against him with a loud apology before shoving herself off and glaring at Wanda. She smells like cider and cigarettes. Bucky brushes himself off and waves away Steve’s approaching hand to pull him up.

“Sorry Bucky!” She yanks him up by the arm oblivious to his efforts in steadying himself, “Wanda! You’re not supposed to repeat stuff like that!”

She’s wearing shorts cut-off high on her thighs and an oversized college sweatshirt. Peeking out from beneath it is a grey flannel, haphazardly tucked into her bottoms. She smooths her hair, pretending that the last 30 seconds of her life hadn’t occurred.

“I love this sweater,” She says as she looks down at herself, “Pietro has the _comfiest_ clothes.”

Bucky’s too quick for that shit.

“Don’t change the subject,” He reprimands playfully as he pops the top off a bottle with a smirk, swinging his arm to lock over Steve’s tense shoulders. “What’s this about _soft jock_ boyfriends? I’d really like for you to elaborate on Steve, specifically.”

Both parties flush red from head to toe and the girl spins awkwardly around, catching herself on the two countertops when the wheels bank too hard in one direction. “Oh _fuck me_. I mean, well, _look_ at him! And he _draws_ and goes to my dumb poetry sessions.” She blows a strand of hair out of her face.

Steve turns a dangerous shade of crimson.  
“Bucky draws too!” He shouts suddenly, getting a sharp slap on his arm.

Wanda’s eyes are bright and full of mirth as she surveys the exchange. Steve occupies himself with gargling down the rest of his beer before starting to blabber a question about why [Name] is wearing roller blades. She doesn’t have a reason at all, other than putting them on in a whim, and that’s good enough for him. They’re Wanda’s old pair- from a time when her brother convinced her to exercise with him- perhaps with something fun. Apparently, it took Wanda half a minute before they were thrown into the deepest part of her closet (and that was her being gracious).

People move in and out of the kitchen space, following each other with conversation and laughter and they hear a voice with an even thicker European accent coming from the other side.

“Is that mine, _dorogaya_?” A male figure with bleached white hair and dark roots puts an arm around [Name]’s waist before tugging on the hem of the fabric with his other hand. He catches her slight stumbling with a deft arm before letting it settle along the small of her back. Steve feels a slight ping of jealousy at their interaction, but notices her edging away carefully, as if afraid to offend him.

“I spilled beer on myself,” she admits, “But _Pietro_...” She says it as if she’s said it a million times before, leaning backward against the counter, giving him an annoyed look.

“Again, with this?” Pietro hisses, pulling his arms away to cross over his chest. He’s glaring at her, and she closes eyes in both exasperation and despondence. “ _Fuck_ him. I hate this talk with you, _dorogaya_. What’s the point of having a girlfriend if you never see her?” He spits it like venom. Everyone takes a collective sharp inhale as the tension changes from playful to ire.

Wanda rolls her eyes from her seat and reprimands Pietro in another language, but Steve can hear her say ‘brother’ under her breath. He’s surprised because they certainly _look_ nothing alike other than the fact that they’re fair-skinned. Pietro ignores his sister and pretends to look around the kitchen with a flourish.

“Where is your Alex? I don’t see him. If it bothers him when I call you _dorogaya_ , maybe he can tell me to my face.”

“Pietro. _You’re_ bothering her.” His sister’s command silences him and he throws his hands into the air.

“Fine. Shut up, Pietro. You talk too much and too loud. And too truthful.” He sends a look to his sister before storming off outside into the patio, pulling something from his pocket. “If you need me, come find me.”

Pietro waves a finely wrapped blunt- albiet too thick- between his fingers and disappears out the back door. The object of his affection darkens and mutters that she’ll be in the front as she shoves a cigarette between her teeth and peels off the sweatshirt in a huff, gliding away. As mentioned, the wet stain on her flannel comes into view, a large amorphous black blob atop the grey. The wheels of the rollerblades clack against the kitchen tile before muffling in the battered carpet. The sweater is thrown into the crack of a slightly open door, and it falls somewhere into the darkness of a bedroom.

Steve and Bucky exchange looks with Wanda, who waves her hand dismissively; she’s seen this many times before. “Pietro is protective of the things he likes. He’s never had a lot of them.”

Her eyes dart out the window to the back patio where Pietro paces resentfully.

“Did they…?” Steve lets the question linger, unsure of what he should say next. She did wear Pietro’s sweater, after all. And even more than any of her other friends, he seems to be extremely antagonistic towards the boyfriend. Bucky’s curious too.

Wanda shakes her head with another sigh, “No... She’s kind, but Pietro is too wild. He cares for her. Wants her to be happy.”

“Is she? Happy?” Steve wonders out loud.

“Have you heard her read?” Wanda asks with a knowing smile, glancing between the two of them. “Do you think a happy woman writes such woeful poetry?”

 

 

Bucky leaves Steve with Wanda in the kitchen as he steps outside where Pietro stands. The blunt is lit and he’s puffing at it impetuously, ruffling his hand through his messy waves in frustration, cursing under his breath. The wood deck beneath his feet creak with each step. When he sees Bucky, he hands the item over in acknowledgement, and Bucky takes two breaths of it before giving it back, humming at the taste. It’s been a while since he’s smoked weed and it makes his head all floaty. A much better alternative to cigarettes, he thinks.

“Apologies for … that.” Pietro puts out the burning tip against a wet thumb, “Makes me crazy, that one.” He takes a deep inhale before locking his fingers behind his head and lets the air go in a growl. His foot kicks a pebble into the bushes. “Why be with someone who makes you miserable... it’s stupid.”

Bucky shrugs, licking his lips as the moisture in his mouth begins to wick itself away. He thinks about all the times him and Dot were at each other’s throats- screaming and squabbling, parked outside his apartment. He also thinks about the sex afterwards, the two of them squished together in that tiny little car. Explosive and primal, rocking the damn thing all over the driveway.

He definitely understands why.

Bucky must be making a sympathetic face because Pietro peels open his big blue eyes in disbelief.

“ _No_. Come on. You too?”

“Sometimes it happens.” Bucky admits sheepishly, “The sex was great.”

“You’re not still in it, are you?” The left side of Pietro’s mouth curls up in disgust but travels back down when Bucky shakes his head. “Good. Everyone deserves better. Sex… pfft. Sex is everywhere. Have you seen half the people at this party? Animals. All of us.”

Bucky snorts a laugh as Pietro claps him on the back and leads him back inside with promises of more beer and possibly a round of shots to satisfy his cottonmouth. Pietro leads him right to the newly abandoned beer pong table and starts setting up shop, waving a friend over. A redhead wearing heeled boots steps next to him, flicking a strand of wavy hair over her shoulder. Bucky half-looks around for Steve, who, like a bloodhound has sniffed out the fun.

“Men, Natasha; Natasha, men.” Pietro is nondescript as he arranges the red cups carefully. Natasha smiles and shakes their hand, “Twins and I are childhood friends. You guys go here?” The boys nod in response and Natasha tucks her hair behind her ears, cracking her neck as Pietro hands her the first shot. “I’m not the school type, but I do love these fucking ragers.” A feline smile grows on her face, “Not sure you know what you signed up for here.”

 

She’s right.

It’s an absolutely bloodbath as Natasha and Pietro wipe the floor with Steve and Bucky. They sink shot after shot and Bucky’s head is spiraling towards the end of the game in both disbelief and inebriation. A small crowd has gathered to watch the slaughter, and Bucky vows this is absolutely the last game of beer pong he’s going to play until they can practice with water at home. He leaves Steve once more, who’s defiantly bargaining with Natasha and Pietro for a rematch. Bucky will decidedly _not_ be a part of that humiliation.

The room is starting to spin as he finishes the last cup and meanders to the couch in the living area where someone is being _way_ too loud in a rough British accent.

His name is Thor. Bucky isn’t sure he likes Thor. He’s more of a mountain than a man, and he has no perception of volume or personal space.

“You had no chance. No chance.” The thump on his back jolts Bucky awake as Thor grins from ear to ear, scrolling through his Instagram feed of fitness models and powerlifters. “Natasha is quite a terror, but don’t worry, all the newbies go through this harrowing if they want to be invited back for Halloween.”

“Sorry Bucky, I should have warned you.” [Name] is on his other side, sitting on her legs and tapping away at her phone. There’s a sleepy smile on her face as she turns the music down on the T.V. and looks sympathetically at Bucky. “Natasha’s a glutton for punishment as long as she’s dealing. We played Russian Roulette my first time here and I think I woke up with fuckin’ alcohol poisoning.”

“What’s this about Halloween?” Steve calls from the back of the couch. The three of them crane their head back to observe him, looking as awake as ever, only a smattering of pink dusting his cheeks. Bucky feels annoyed that Steve can essentially drink as much as five men and not be affected. Damn that tolerance of his. He stands tall and cheerful as he ruffles Bucky’s hair, streaking his fingers through fondly. This was a classic buzzy Steve Rogers move—handsy and playful. Bucky swats back, catching Steve’s fingers in hard pinches. [Name] smiles at the gesture and places her hand on her heart, eyebrows lifting fondly at them.

“Rogers! Is that you? I didn’t recognize you in jeans!” Thor holds his hand out and they slap each other amiably—Bucky’s disheveled locks forgotten about.

“Thor! Wow! Glad to see you’re still working out.” He starts pawing at Thor’s massive arms.

“Rogers, you look great. What’s your routine?” Thor returns the gesture with pokes to Steve’s torso.

“No! _You_ look great! What’s _your_ routine?” Thor hastily climbs over the couch, rocking it as he fumbles off the edge and puts his arm around Steve’s shoulder, who hollers “Tell me about Halloween later!” And off they go, spewing on about whey protein powder flavors and the correct amount of reps on a rowing machine.

“Fuck me.” Bucky mumbles under his breath at their retreating backs, smoothing the tangles atop his head. [Name] laughs to his right, grinning at his annoyance before announcing, “So cute.”

Bucky grumbles playfully, doing his best impression of an old man. He mutters as she takes a sip of a beer, “What’s your story?”

When she doesn’t respond, he gives her a pointed look at the stained flannel and then jerks his head back to Pietro in the kitchen, dual wielding what looks like two shots of vodka, blunt behind his ear. The girl huffs and slumps down in her seat, arms crossed over the splotch of beer, her phone tucked underneath an armpit. Bucky notices it glowing in rhythms against her shirt.

“He’s an insufferable ass.”

“He seems to think the same about your guy.”

“He doesn’t _know_ my guy.”

Bucky hums mysteriously, already five steps ahead of her. He knows this story, the vague descriptions and circular logic that were supposed to justify all the shit, but he lets her rant anyway. He knows that she won’t end up saying much in the end, because if you don’t tell, no one will know the truth, and you can keep it all to yourself, good and bad.

In the beginning of his own relationship, he couldn’t stop himself from spewing about Dot- his gorgeous, fun-loving, exciting girl-- a new partner in crime, a girl made to withstand his intensity. But as the months passed, Bucky pulled the reins back just a little, and her name began to pass from his lips in crowds as _Dolores_ , his girlfriend who was just so busy that she wouldn’t be able to make it out this time.

Dolores, his girlfriend who he was doing _just fine_ with, going on dates that were _just fine_ , making up after fights _just fine,_ in a relationship that was _just fine_.

“Who does know? Just you?” Bucky sends the weight on the couch, shifting awkwardly under his questioning. She takes off her glasses and wipes them with her shirt nervously.

She glares at him but softens her gaze. “Yeah.” She shrugs, “I really love him. God, more than anything. We just.. I don’t know what it is. I just…” She does something here that Bucky notices- it's a jerk of the corner of her mouth, upwards just for a brief second—at a glance it looks like a smile.

Bucky motions to her phone, which is still glowing, and she quickly grabs it to shoot off another rapid-fire text, biting her lip at something. He can see the parts inside her mouth that are ragged from incessantly being chewed on and pretends to busy himself taking another drink.

“Hey, I’ve been there.” He admits, staring straight ahead at the T.V., now playing some music video with too many electronic tones for his taste. He tries to pretend to focus on the bright geometric shapes that are changing too fast for him to keep up with. He doesn’t want to sound invested, because it’s really not his damn business, yet he can’t help but _feel_ a little bit irritated.

She sounds like him, six months ago, and he wants to grab her by the shoulders, shake her, and yell _get out of there!_

Instead, he steels his voice and continues to watch the crumbling triangles and undulating spheres.

“The whole… suffering because that’s what makes you stronger thing…. It’s crap.”

There’s a silence that passes over them, even with the buzzing of conversation and music in the background. A couple he doesn’t know plops down on the other side of the room in a loveseat and begin kissing. People are walking all around them, drinking, chattering. Bucky doesn’t dare look over, because he knows he’s said too much already to a barely acquainted acquaintance in a room that doesn’t belong to him, with a group of people he’s only met once. She says nothing as she shuffles around in the couch before standing up and patting off her shorts.

She answers the phone on the second ring and heads out the back door.

 

 

It’s only when they leave a quarter-till eleven that Bucky and Steve find her again, underneath the tree in the front yard, calmly spinning the wheel of Pietro’s bicycle discarded by the roots. Other than the wet lashes and the red rims of her eyes, she’s smiling with that quick jerk of her lips again as they walk past and waves them goodnight. A single unlit cigarette is tucked into her mouth and there’s about five more next to her feet in a makeshift rock ashtray. The tail end of Pietro’s neatly rolled blunt is smashed against the rock as well.

Steve half-steps towards the tree before Bucky puts his hand out. She dusts off her legs when he comes by and pushes her glasses up.

“You should quit.” Bucky says, gesturing to the cigarette butts. He doesn’t ask about the dampness on her cheeks.

“Ha. I’m doing a great job, can’t you tell?” The sweep of her open palms counts the graveyard of burnt cylinders, smoked down to their filters. Deflection. Bucky’s well-versed in that too. “How’d _you_ do it?” She asks, smiling.

Bucky runs his hand through his hair, leaning his weight on one leg.

“I got dumped.”

Steve stands on the sidelines, hands tucked into his pockets as he listens. As much as he’d like to be the one talking to her, he thinks, Bucky seems to be the better man for this instance. [Name]’s eyes widen slightly at Bucky’s honest confession before she takes the cigarette from of her mouth and puts it behind her ear almost out of guilt.

“Oh, sorry to hear that…” She says, rubbing the back of her neck. She stands up, stepping from one foot to the other, picking blades of grass from her knees.

Bucky shrugs, “Don’t be. I was tired of suffering anyway. I was sore at first but… now I’m right as rain.”

[Name] lets out a long laugh, something slightly musical but he can hear the strangest sigh at the end of the note. With another dazzling smile, she grins up at him and then at Steve.

“You guys _are_ soft, aren’t you?”

 

That night, Bucky has the oddest dream about someone’s wet eyes, gazing at him in the dark.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeaaaaaahhh two chapters in one day. I have like five more chapters already typed but there's so much editing that needs to be done! Let me know what you think.


	3. Bloodflood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pietro recognizes someone at a bar and all hell breaks loose.

Steve and Bucky return to their regular schedules for the rest of September. Steve has class Monday through Thursday and Bucky goes Tuesday and Thursday only, piling on his senior coursework in huge 3-hour blocks. It’s exhausting, but he really hates campus now that he’s a senior. It swims with sweaty bodies-- too many yoga pants and backwards baseball caps flying by on longboards. He’d rather be at home.

He and Steve find time to go running and work out together in the mornings, and when Steve goes to flag football and rugby, Bucky finds himself venturing out to the bars to meet up with women. He’s trying out Tinder. It’s kind of a fucking mess. He’s kind of a mess, too, sleeping around indiscriminately, trying to get back into the swing of things.

He also keeps trying to convince Steve to go out too and get his mind off a girl who wasn’t available, but the stubborn Captain never budged.

“It’s not like that, Buck.” He always says.

 

They see their new friends a bit more in September, getting invited to Wanda and Pietro’s house for movie night on Thursdays, which generally start off innocently enough, but there’s always a catch and at the end of it when no one remembers the movie or the number of shots taken. Pietro’s got a stash of weed that would last the rest of the season somewhere in his room and he’s never anything other than gracious. Bucky and Steve match him from time to time, and they find themselves shooting the shit about anything and everything when they get together.

They see [Name] sparingly, peppered in throughout the weeks. Sometimes she’s there early, sometimes she arrives late, but she never stays for more than two hours. She always leaves before eleven, as if she’s on a curfew and it’s the most annoying thing because they’ll literally be in the middle of a conversation and she’ll just go, “Later!”

They learn more about her as much as they can with the irregular meetings. Like she wasn’t “stellar” at history and science but excelled in math and English, surprise, surprise. She used to do ballet until she broke her foot in the eighth grade—cursed, she swears, by a witchy rival in dance class.

They also learn that she works part-time at the Writing Lab. She is astonishingly foul-mouthed behind the stanzas of well-thought poetry and metaphor. She has the silliest sense of humor and it’s so jumbled up with internet-jargon and self-deprecating one-liners it makes their heads spin. She laughs with her entire body and bakes the most sinister pot brownies they have ever eaten, cutting them into heart shapes and making the leftovers into brownie pops—unassuming little fucking bombs that completely obliterate them. And that she loves Keanu Reeves “like a real person”.

The secrets and trivia spill out chaotically when they sit on the couch with a slasher flick blaring in the background, all red-eyed and fuzzy from their activities. Silliness, strings of incomprehensible half-giggling punch lines to poorly set-up jokes, shrieks of laughter when Pietro tells too-embarrassing stories from freshman year, but… nothing _real._ No parents. No siblings. No mention of Alex.

It’s Pietro’s go-to topic of conversation when she leaves at 10:20, stumbling from the front door and darting off on her bike, refusing anyone’s attempt to walk or drive her home.

“Dickhead Alex.” or “Fuck-ass-piece-of-shit Alex.” or, more mildly put, “Stupid Alex.”

Pietro never holds back on the expletives and Wanda never reels him in. In not so many crass words, she feels the same way, but she also steps a little bit further towards the truth.  
“It’s her fault, too. She’s too scared to let go.”

The Twins are like two sides of the same, strange coin. Wanda is sullen and composed while Pietro is impulsive and mercurial, yet they finish each other’s sentences and seem to operate like one single being. Pietro _was_ wild, like Wanda had warned them of—always ready to go out and drink until morning, always ready to get into a fight, always riled up when he spoke about [Name].  

Bucky’s quiet any time Pietro goes off on another rant because what part of his is news to him, anyway? Sometimes he feels like Pietro could very well be talking about him because he recognizes each criticism as something he’s done in the past. [Name] runs out on her friends to please Alex. Check. He did that. [Name] doesn’t talk to them. Check. Pretends everything’s okay. Check. Is very obviously in a bad relationship but can’t admit or see or confront it? _Fucking check_.

Yet Steve never runs out of questions or the desire to absorb more. He’s in over his head, Bucky thinks. _Way_ over.

“Well, why doesn’t she just _talk_ about it?” That’s his favorite question to ask when he’s slurring and dead drunk, draped half-way across Bucky’s lap. Steve Rogers thinks anything can be solved with a good ol’ fashioned conversation. “Why doesn’t she call anyone for advice?” “Why does she _like_ _him_?”

Wanda tells them they’d been together since her senior year in high school- nearly four years now—juggling their lives with a long-distance relationship. They’d met through a friend of a friend and he was three years older. He’d gone off to college for a year and inspired her to follow her passion and write instead of going through the science track as her parents wanted. He was her first serious relationship as an impressionable young girl. Wanda doesn’t know all the details but it was apparently kept a secret from his parents who really still liked his ex-girlfriend and … something about Alex possibly going off to the Army three years ago.

She says all this with a disclaimer because her memory’s fuzzy and [Name] hasn’t talked any more about Alex since freshman year.

Steve descends further into frustration, groaning and huffing, boggled at how any of those moments could lead to this reality. The more upset he gets, the lower he slumps into Bucky and Bucky spends most nights at Wanda and Pietro’s consoling his friend.

 

On a Friday morning, Steve shoots Bucky Natasha’s number and a screenshot of her social media account. There’s a picture of her in a low-cut top juggling two bottles of vodka confidently.

“She just started working at a nice bar about forty-five minutes away. You wanna go tonight after my sketch group?”

“You going to see a gal at her place of work, Rogers? Not quite what I call romantic.”

Steve deftly avoids his insinuation, “Pietro and Wanda are coming too. They’re having some sort of Autumn bash, why don’t you invite that girl you’ve been seeing?”

“Yeah, I’ll go, pal.” Bucky sends a tentative text to his new friend- a girl by the name of Priscilla-- and she agrees to meet him there. He’s been seeing her for the past week and she’s stayed the night once. He thinks it’s a good chance to see how well they mesh outside of the small confines of his room or hers.

 

She’s a nice girl and he likes her as much as someone can in such a short amount of time—he at least likes her more than any of the other girls. They watch fifteen minutes of a movie together and then get down to business. He met her at a bar and at first it was very much a hit-and-run kind of situation, but the more times they meet up, the more they find common ground on and the conversations began to flow more naturally between them. Granted, most of it is in the form of filthy expletives, but, it’s a start.

Steve’s out the door by ten, catching the bus to the art building with more than plenty of time to spare for a leisurely walk on campus. Bucky makes himself a nice breakfast of two sunny-side up eggs and three strips of bacon, forgoing the cold oatmeal and fruit combination that Steve was so loyal to. He has a free day today anyway, so he plops down at his desk with the plate and checks his e-mail before opening a lengthy word-document.

Three hours fly by and before he knows it his workspace is a mountain of cluttered tomes and half-highlighted passes from grainy PDF prints. Bucky goes for a jog before stopping for a sandwich and walks back the rest of the way. Priscilla has sent him a few picture messages, teasers for what’s to come at the end of the night. The grin on his face is painfully large by the time he steps in the shower.

It’s going to be a good evening, he thinks, a _very_ good evening by the looks of this red lingerie set that sits in his inbox.

 

They order a round of beers at the bar, sitting together in a booth directly across the small space from Natasha, cheering her on as she pours drink after drink, shaking, setting things on fire, twirling and flipping bottles. It’s all very impressive when she doesn’t even break eye-contact with Wanda as she’s doing all of it.

Steve’s on the outside, then Bucky, then Priscilla, who had met them at the door. Wanda and Pietro are on the other side. They’re joyful and pleasant smiles all around. Priscilla squeezes Bucky’s thigh as she satisfies Steve’s questions about her major, hobbies, and the general niceties that people ask one another when they first meet. Steve’s beyond elated, Bucky notices, his eyes are dancing with delight and have been all day. He’s over the moon that Bucky’s been cheerful enough to invite a girl anywhere, especially when it comes to venturing outside.

He’s so proud of Bucky, Steve thinks, and so happy to see his old friend resurface almost completely back to normal after months of disappearance. It’s never a fight to get him to leave the apartment anymore, and he’s even eager to participate in social gatherings. Steve feels a grin breaking across his face.

The conversation eventually dies down, quieting stories of each others’ youths and reminiscences about how _easy_ high school had been. Steve is inclined to disagree—but his opinion is an unpopular one. Pietro invites Priscilla to their next get-together, promising her an easy beer pong win (with immediate outcries from Steve and Bucky), and she agrees to the challenge, flashing a big smile. Natasha makes her way over with a round of shots for the table.

“You want any appetizers? It’s on me tonight.”

They applaud and cheer, and Natasha goes behind the bar to punch in an order of fries and hot wings. She turns back around and takes a couple’s drink order, complimenting their choice of alcohol and congratulates them on their anniversary. When she starts shaking up the mixer and the alcohol, the couple turns around and Pietro’s joke about how Bucky has “got the lungs of a little bitch” dies in his throat.

Everyone looks at him, their own conversations and laughter dissipating into the air as well. Pietro’s gripping the table so tightly that his knuckles have turned bone-white to match the top of his head. His lips are peeled back and his teeth are bared for the world to see. The three words that fall from his lips turn the night completely sideways.

“That’s fucking _Alex_.”

 

There’s a brief moment of confusion before the chaos. It passes in a blink of an eye, but it feels like a lifetime. Steve’s gaze drops onto the bar when Pietro makes his announcement, and he sees the boyfriend in question. He’s slim, bearded, dressed in nice jeans and an unfortunately ill-fitting button-up. It’s nice enough to get the sense that he’s here not on a casual appearance. He’s grinning and leaning back against the bar. The girl on his arm is tall, wavy sandy hair, made up in dark eyeshadow and red lipstick. She’s wearing a scarlet dress to match. On her left hand is a promise ring.

Steve feels his gut turn upside down when she looks up at Alex with indulgent eyes and a bright-white smile. She loves him. She _absolutely_ loves him. The congratulations that Natasha had given resurfaces in his ears. They were celebrating an _anniversary_. Which means that this is a sustained affair- at least a year long. The ring on her finger suggests even longer.

 

“Pietro, _don’t_.” Wanda commands, tight-lipped, hand twisting the back of Pietro’s track jacket.

Before she can open her mouth to say something else in attempt to sate her brother’s fury, Bucky has taken his place, shooting up from the booth with a loud _clunk_ as the table’s leg clatters a few inches across the floor. They watch in horror as Bucky nearly flies over the ten steps it takes to reach the bar and smashes his fist into Alex’s jaw.

The boys are out of their seat instantaneously, arms hooked around Bucky’s body hanging over the stool and dragging him back to the booth. Natasha stands behind the counter, her pants splashed after dropping a glass full of swirling pink liquid and orange peels, mouth wide open in shock. Alex is sprawled over the bar in disarray, and the girl next to him screeches when she sees the blood spraying from his lip.

“Oh my god! What the hell!” She’s frantic as her head spins from Alex to the booth, gathering napkins to wipe him to the best of her ability.

“Bucky, pal! Jesus Christ!” Steve is hissing as Bucky takes trembling breaths against him. There’s a whirlwind in his ears as his heart pounds too loudly for him to hear anything else. It all happened so fast—Pietro’s recognition, the flood of instant full-bodied wrath that overtook him, the impact of his knuckles.

Alex wipes his mouth and squares his shoulders, shrugging off his date’s hand when it lands on him. His eyes are narrowed and angry when he steps up to Bucky, who also shrugs Steve loose- words of placation falling upon deaf ears. They meet in the middle of the floor where Bucky stares down his nose at the blooming red splash he’s inflicted. When Alex recognizes the bleach-white strands of Pietro’s head, he freezes.

“Yeah. You do remember me, don’t you?” Pietro spits. The snarl is back in full force.

“Shit.” Is all he manages to say before his date comes over and grabs his arm, “What the hell is going on, babe?!”

 

They’ve caused too much of a scene already. There’s broken glass, blood, chairs strewn about. People are staring, the _massive_ manager is marching from his back-corner office, and Natasha is seething because they might have just cost her the damn job and a perfectly good pair of slacks.

Bucky runs his hand through his hair and heads out the door, mouthing an apology to Natasha and putting a twenty on the counter as lightly as he possibly can. His hands are shaking so much that it might have very well been that he slammed it. He doesn’t know because he can barely recall where he’s at or what he’s doing as he stumbles out.

The rest of the group follows, all exchanging apologetic glances and single-word apologies, and so does the girl in red, but Alex stays inside.

“What the fuck is your problem!?” She screams at Bucky, the tears in her eyes running in streams, leaving trails on her cheeks. “Who the _fuck_ are you?!”

Wanda steps forward, hand flexed peacefully. Her strangely calm demeanor makes the girl take a step back, slipping on her heel before catching herself in the amber gaze of Wanda’s kind eyes. “I’m sorry,” Wanda begins, “I really am. Alex is our friend’s boyfriend. It seems like he’s _yours_ too.”

“ _What_?” The girl is hysterical, “What the hell are you talking about? Alex and I have been together for _years!_ ”

 

Bucky doesn’t think he can stand another second of this, so he storms back to Steve’s car, away from the now-fading conversation in the distance. His ears are hot and the sting on his knuckles serves as a reminder of why.

He thought that he was going to have just a regular night out with friends and a girl— _shit._

Bucky stops and whirls around. Priscilla is already halfway across the parking lot in the opposite direction by the time he gets to her. His entire face burns when he realizes that she’d witnessed the entire thing. She didn’t sign up for this, and he’d horrifyingly had forgotten all about her in the ruckus of the brawl.

“Priscilla!” He shouts, stopping just a few inches short of her. She raises an eyebrow while holding onto her purse. “James.” it’s a curt reply.

“Priscilla, doll, I’m... I’m so sorry. Shit.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, James. It was fun while it lasted.”

“What-what are you talking about?” He’s a tangle of stammers and nerves as he rolls up his sleeves. It’s his nervous tick, pulling them up past his forearms to bunch against his elbows. He does it when he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands—although right now he’d be happy using them to strangle himself. “I.. Look, let’s forget about this, yeah?”

“James,” She’s laughing, and he feels like she’s in on some joke that’s beyond him. It makes his face blister even hotter in the fall breeze, “I don’t know who that guy was in there or … really, any of this.” She places her hands on her hips and shrugs, “But I think like, whatever it is, you-- Is it about the girl?”

Bucky’s confused as she gestures back to the bar. “What? I don’t even know that girl.”

“No, not _her._ The _other_ girl.” She looks annoyed as she waves her hand around airily, “Whatever. James, look... whatever. Okay? We don’t even know each other, really. All I know is when my ex-boyfriend saw some guy grab my ass with two damn hands at the club, he didn’t even fight for _me_. You... whatever _this_ is about... I’m not a part of it. And like, I don’t want to be. Sorry James. Hope it works out for you.”

Her eyes flit backwards for a brief second before she turns and waves. Bucky’s motionless on the spot, gaping at whatever she’s insinuating—because he doesn’t want to think about it _whatsoever_. He watches her go, purse bouncing against her hip with each step until she’s down the row and in her car.

He wants to scream as she peels out of the lot in her green sedan. He wants to scream and take that stinging fist of his and slam it into his own face. He feels so _damn_ stupid, getting into a dumb bar fight with a guy he doesn’t even know about business that isn’t even his.

But he can’t help it as he thinks about the way Alex turned around so smugly with that girl pressed against his arm, gazing at him like he was the love of her life. He thinks about how many times he’s seen [Name] run out the door on the phone and staring at her screen in anticipation of a message, on the precipice of another _fucking_ fight. He thinks about the fallout of those battles, when she disappears for days at a time and doesn’t respond to text messages. He thinks about when she sits, after a good laugh, and looks like she’s about to cry. He thinks about that tug at the corner of her lips, when she’s trying to hold it in, the tiny sad flash, over in a second.

He thinks about Steve, sadly looking after her trail long after the door slams shut, every _single_ time.

He thinks about his friend, in love with some weaselly piece of shit who’s been running around on her.

Bucky honestly doesn’t know _who_ he punched Alex for. He vaguely reasons that it might even be for himself, in the swirl of confusion and rage—still pissed off at Dot for running around on _him_.

Suddenly, his hand doesn’t hurt anymore. It starts to feel good. He flexes it a few times and admires the bruises that begin to develop.

 

When Bucky turns around and sees Steve standing there, waiting quizzically with his arms crossed, he also thinks to himself that he is so _fucked_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


	4. Breezeblocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the break-up.   
> A short chapter that introduces the 2nd person POV.

It’s been precisely two days and eight hours and thirteen minutes since Wanda called you on the phone to tell you Alex had been spotted at a bar with a girl on his arm. Two days, eight hours, fourteen minutes since you felt your heart jump into your throat and get stuck there. Two days, eight hours, fifteen minutes since you felt it die there.

That was it.

Four years of your life effectively disintegrated right before your eyes into a rotting corpse that haunts you every waking and sleeping moment.

You couldn’t stop replaying every single stupid fight you’d ever had, trying to find all of the hints you so obliviously missed. Or willingly missed.

You knew exactly who that girl was as Wanda described her to you. It wasn’t a surprise to you that it was her—his high-school ex-girlfriend (or current girlfriend, you bitterly thought). The girl whose shadow you spent four years trying to dodge, whose life you so desperately tried to rail against and be the complete opposite of in some sad hope to convince the people around you that it was _you_ who was worthy of his love, not her. She always seemed to return though, to eclipse you with her either her memory or presence.

 

At five in the morning, you sit perched outside your apartment balcony, toes sticking out of the soft blue nightgown, cigarette hanging limply from your dry and cracked lips. Your face feels swollen, your body feels desiccated, all the water from you already dripped out of your eyes in the past two days. It would take some time before you could cry again. Usually not too long, though.

October had arrived and the air was chilly enough to send you back into the warmth of your bed, but you could no longer feel any wind upon your cheek. Alex had been radio-silent, too fucking cowardly to call you to apologize, or lie, or _anything_. You tried to reach him every which way- phone, text, e-mail. You hated his friends and they hated you, so it was no use there.

He’d been such a good manipulator, keeping you at this safe distance, isolating you from the people who would know him best. In the four years you dated him long-distance, separated by nearly 60 miles, you had spent one single Thanksgiving dinner at his parents’ house. It was tense and awkward, and he apologized profusely before you drove the hour-long commute back home, adamant that they were still upset that he wasn’t back together with _her_. It was baffling, but he was so, so genuine that you forgave him. After all, how could it be his fault; his mother was just so damn controlling and _crazy_.  

At first his friends were glad to meet you- going on and on about how you were so much better than his _crazy ex_ , how you were such a _cool girl,_ how you made him so happy. But over time he stopped inviting you over to their parties, citing your age difference—at that time, 18 and 21. Then it was about how he didn’t really trust his friends around you—how somebody had mentioned that you looked pretty and now he just didn’t feel _right_. Then it was about how _they_ didn’t want you to come anymore, citing the fights you had with him too uncomfortable to handle.

And then over time, it was _everybody_ that made him uncomfortable and that he just wanted to protect you. Every single fight to make it seem like you were the one overreacting. Any time you’d ask him why he didn’t pick up the phone at night, it was because you were being hysterical, not for any fault of his own—his phone just died, why couldn’t you understand that?

There were more questionable instances— undated love letters tucked underneath his bed or in drawers full of fucking socks. Underwear behind the dresser—his sister’s, and it had gotten mixed in with his laundry, so _let it go_ , he’d hiss. Weekends spent going on trips with his friends where he’d never answer, and then immediately upon his return you couldn’t get him off the phone for even a second, all because he had _missed you so much_.

He always despised your friends, too—especially the boys.

Pietro’s initial meeting with Alex was when he picked you up outside your freshman dorm, where the two of you had just finished a bike ride through campus. You’d met Pietro during orientation in the summer along with his sister and took up riding around together in the fall. You’d told Alex about the cool Rromani twins who looked nothing alike and taught you curse words in Russian. He’d been surprisingly standoffish about it, and then on that day, didn’t speak to you for an hour after you’d locked up your bike next to Pietro’s.

“That guy _likes_ you. It’s fucking obvious.” He finally hissed after he’d parked the car outside his parents’ empty house—the only time you were ever over.

You laughed it off because Pietro, honestly a stranger at that point, should not have offended Alex that much. But when he looked at you with so much hurt in his eyes, you felt so guilty that you promised you wouldn’t ride your bike with him anymore.

Eventually, you couldn’t even hang out with anyone after a certain time at night because once Thor walked you home from the library near midnight after a lengthy cram-session and Alex was so livid the fight dragged on for two days. He’d make you feel so guilty for wasting your relationship with fighting because he lived so far away and you shouldn’t be spending that time upset with him.

It wasn’t worth it. It was exhausting. It was sickening. After every fight you’d throw yourself into bed and sleep it off. It became a cycle of tears and sleep, and you’d conditioned yourself to falling into bed clutching onto the hope that once you’d wake up it’d all be over.

You just wanted to be happy with him—like you knew that you could be.

And happiness came often, and it was _real_. When he’d visit your dorm after the apologies, and eventually your apartment, you had so much fun together. You’d go out on dates, you’d stay in bed and binge-watch shows. You’d cuddle and sleep in, you’d read him your poetry and he fawned over your creative mind. He helped you edit, he gave you advice, he taught you _so_ many things. He was the only person who understood your fucked-up family and your fears of turning into your mother. He supported you. He _loved_ you.

How did it get so _fucked up_? What was so wrong with you that you couldn’t get this one fucking thing right? What was so wrong with you that you were so desperate to return to him?

 

Hot tears prick at your eyes once more as you crush another filter against the concrete. Your phone sits at your feet, screen black, gazing upward at the dark pre-dawn sky. You poke at it, hoping by some miracle that Alex might coincidentally be calling you at this very instance. The screen only peers back with sixteen unopened text messages from Pietro, three from Wanda, and three from Natasha. There is a missed call from Steve and a voicemail you are too nervous to open.

 

The thought of Steve makes your head hurt.

The memory of one of the worst arguments surfaces in your mind… the time you mentioned to Alex that someone had complimented your writing during the library session. You’d barely gotten out that a boy named Steve had sat down with you when Alex hung up. He _hung_ _up_. You thought he’d be happy for you, since he was so supportive of your craft. When Steve came over and asked with genuine curiosity alight in his eyes for you to deconstruct the language with him, you felt so excited you wanted to text Alex right away. You had already asked Steve to come to another session.

So when Alex finally called you back three hours later, you left that specific detail out as he scolded you for being so naïve. _College boys all want the same fucking thing. He’s taking advantage of you_. You’d responded that he was probably not interested, since he was talking to you about a poem you’d written about your very gay friend, but Alex kept scolding you until you relented and apologized. Then the conversation turned toward greener pastures, as if it never even happened.

You stopped talking about Steve. You stopped talking about anybody who wasn’t Wanda or Natasha or Jess. Even the girls—Zoe and Elliot, could have been a possibility that would take you away from him. You’d go to parties and make appearances here and there for short bursts, always monitoring Alex’s moods, constantly reassuring him that  you just missed your girlfriends, and that you wouldn’t drink too much, and that you’d take yourself home before eleven and call him right away.

You shut everyone else out slowly, desperately, trying anything to keep him happy. And when he was happy, you were happy. The constant exhausting struggle felt _worth it_.

Eventually no one knew anything real about you _but_ Alex. He was all you had for _four_ years.

 

 

Your eyes burn, bleary and stinging, as they dry again. The sun is starting to come up slowly, changing all the colors of the night into rose petal and persimmon shades.

You return to bed, where you lie back down in turmoil, a vicious mess of tears, screams, and muttering prayer for something, _anything_ , to take your pain from you.

 --

 

“Anything?”

Pietro shuts the door as he steps in early Tuesday morning, rolling his neck with a loud series of cracks and pops. The thin hoodie hanging off his lithe runner’s body droops at the pocket with the heaviness of his phone. Steve’s been bugging him all weekend for updates because he’s already left one 15-second long voicemail that hasn’t been returned and he’s too nervous and scared to try again. It’s not his place, he keeps telling himself, but he just can’t help but worry.

Pietro pulls out the device and shows Steve the long chain of messages he’s sent. Since he’s woken up, he’s flung out four more with no avail. His count has gone up to twenty.

 _Dorogaya, please. Talk to me. Come to us. We’re here for you._  
Let me know what you’re thinking.  
Please be safe.  
God, I’m so worried about you.

Steve rubs his face in frustration and dismay as he walks back to the couch where Bucky sits quietly flipping through channels. _They_ haven’t talked to each other very much either, ending the long car ride with a loud slam of the door before marching off to their respective rooms in silence. The way back home was filled with keen questions from Steve about why Bucky felt the need to start a bar-fight, why he felt so riled up anyway? What the hell is happening with Priscilla? What is the matter with him because no one past the age of 17 should be getting into physical altercations anyway! What if he got _arrested_?!

None of those questions had been answered in the past four days.

Bucky remained stoic, muttering only with “My hand’s fine, thanks for asking.” And nothing else.

 

Pietro plops down next to Bucky and holds up his right hand, examining the cluster of now orange and green discoloration across his knuckles. He lets out a low whistle before giving Bucky a predatory grin.

“Did it feel good?”

Bucky takes his hand back, shoving it in the pocket of his jacket and grumbles something incomprehensible. Pietro sends him a look of suspicion. “You two are similar creatures.” He says mysteriously. Steve watches from the small two-person table in the dining space, flipping open a book and pretending to take notes. Pietro continues, “Were you thinking about your _stupid_ relationship, Barnes?”

 

Bucky wordlessly goes into his room and slams the door shut once more. It rattles the entire hallway and Steve groans at the sound. Pietro sends the remaining roommate a look before turning the T.V. up and calling him over with a crooked tug of his finger. Steve relents to the unblinking stare and leans against the back of the couch. The noise of the news channel drowns out their voices.

“I’m not an idiot.” He says quietly, and so serious that it makes Steve swallow a sudden lump in his throat. He’s never seen Pietro be anything but bratty or mocking so the humorless tone frightens him just a little. “I know you like her, and I know _he_ likes her.” Pietro’s enormous baby-blue eyes are glaring intensely, darting to Bucky’s door.

“But maybe don’t be so obvious, Rogers? Huh? And him too. Can’t believe he punched that piece of shit Alex. Even I probably wouldn’t have _actually_ done it.” 

The accusation (is it an accusation if it’s the truth?) stings. He’s never had to face it head-on like this. He was more than happy to leave it hovering intangibly somewhere on the sidelines all this time. At the library, at the party, at the movie nights, Steve was _just fine_ letting it exist as something he did not have to confront yet. But the reality of it crawling closer was looming over him.

Steve thinks his incessant questioning at Bucky all weekend was, in part, his own projection of his distress. Or maybe a scapegoat. Maybe if Bucky admitted it, he wouldn’t feel so bad, either. Steve didn’t like the idea of being this infatuated boy, overstepping his boundaries with a female friend.

“Why are you telling me this?” Steve plants his feet firmly, trying to seem confident as he towers over Pietro’s lounging figure on the couch. There’s a swirl of indecipherable emotions running through him, and he’s unsure if he could even sort it out if he tried. Pietro rolls his eyes, the brattiness resurfacing, a familiar side of him Steve was glad to see. Pietro raises his hand and shows Steve an “ok” on his fingers, but the sigh of relief that rises is immediately squashed when his other hand thrusts a pointer through the hole. “Keep it in your pants for a little while, huh?”

“Pietro—I’m not—”

“Sex is everywhere.” The Sokovian boy shrugs before turning back to the T.V. he pulls a small Ziploc bag out of his pocket and waves the green bud behind his back at Steve, “Care to join?”

 --

 

Bucky sees her on campus at the end of a long class period—a Thursday morning, two weeks after it had happened. She’s wearing a deep burgundy long-sleeve dress that sits too loosely against her frame and dark brown boots. He can tell she hasn’t been eating as he approaches her because there’s a sharp shadow of her hip bone jutting out. She’s leaning against a tree, chewing absently on a pencil while she watches the throng of students walk past.

“Hey?” He asks tentatively, as if it might scare her.

She looks funny, he thinks, when she finally sees him. She’s smiling, but there’s something _off_ about it. “Oh, hey,” is all she says, and then as if she’s snapping awake she shakes her head and stands up straight, tucking the pencil behind her ear. “Buck! Hey! How are you? How’s Steve? How are you guys doing?”

Bucky pretends he doesn’t hear her questions and turns it back on her. She seems too distracted to notice it anyway.

“You alright?”

“Oh yeah. Right as rain, you know?”

The familiar phrase flips inside of him, its offhandedness sticking in his chest. They make short conversation as he steps closer, fearful, treading over thin ice as he’s not sure if he should ever bring up what happened last Friday.

“What are you doing?” He asks finally, after the crowd has died down but she shows no sign of leaving with them. She looks at him, behind the clear lens of her glasses and gives him a little smile.

“I just finished my early shift at the Writing Lab, so I’m waiting for Alex to call back.”

Bucky’s breath catches in his throat and his stomach turns with the knowing of an inevitable reconciliation. This is what happens. There’s disappointment that begins to brew, the common coldness of an experience that he wishes he could convey to her. She smiles sadly when she sees him clench his fists.

“No-- I’m not, ha.. I just want some closure, I think. Could you stay, though? Just in case ---I don’t know. I lose my resolve and do something stupid?”

The phone rings and she picks it up, staring into his eyes nervously. But the look ebbs away slowly the longer she remains on the phone. Bucky can hear Alex’s voice on the other line, tinny and pleading at first before turning loud and vulgar. He remembers this all too well. [Name] pinches her nose bridge with her fingers before exhaling a sharp cry- sudden enough to shock Bucky into staring.

“Shut up! Are you serious? You’ve been lying to two people for the last four years, you absolute sociopath. Jesus, Alex. Are you—really? It’s _my_ fault? Are you really trying to put this on _me_ right now?”

Tears start filling up in her eyes and Bucky grabs onto her hand to steady her against the tree. The voice on the other line grows quiet again and mutters a string of sentences before it stops. Bucky squeezes her hand when a look of sympathy crosses her face. She nods silently to him, offering a small grimace.

“Alex… stop it. Stop it. You cannot do this to me. No. I will not see you again. You’re not allowed to come over—No, I will _not_ answer the door.”

There’s protest on the other line.  

In the middle of an exhale [Name] absently turns Bucky’s hand, now growing slightly moist from the tight clasp. She notices the now-ochre stain of his knuckles and pulls his fist towards her, making the connection. “I swear to God, Alex. If you fucking show up at my apartment, you’re going to get your ass kicked again. I’m looking dead at him and he is _not_ fucking around.”

Bucky feels a surge of pride swell up in his chest—as weird and fucked up as it was. He pushes it down when she hangs up and wipes her eyes under her glasses.

The hand inside of his grips him tightly once more.

She finally lets go, shuddering against the bark of the tree for a silent moment before pushing herself off and pulling a cigarette from a pack in her bag. “Dick!” The spark of her lighter’s wheel ignites a flame and she inhales, looking at Bucky from behind the fire.

“Bucky, I’ll be honest with you.”

He swallows.

She grabs his hand again, examining the knuckles that still sting to the touch, “I’m so glad you did not have charges pressed against you. Steve would have my ass. And, I’m against violence… but _thank you_ anyway,” She’s shaking as she presses the filter back to her mouth, wiping at her eyes again. “Honestly, you are the single reason Alex is not going 110 on the highway to confront me at my door.”

A few students walking by stare at them under the shade of the tree. Bucky watches her breathe in the smoke and thinks this might be the perfect time. He rubs his beard.

“So… you’re single.” He wants to take it back as soon as it leaves his mouth. It comes off so _sleazy_ , like he’s just waiting around for the moment she changes her relationship status on Facebook before sliding immediately into her DM’s or something. She doesn’t seem to notice and only laughs at his blunder.

“Yeah. Single. Effectively. Fuck it feels weird.”

“Wanna make it official?” Bucky asks, pointing to the blazing cigarette neatly sitting between her two fingers. He mimics the way she’s poised, taking his fingers and throwing a pretend item behind her. “Make it official.” The question turns into a command.

She sputters, looking from him to her fingers, back and forth, frantically weighing the decision in her mind. He’s grinning wider the longer she takes and in the end, with a final loud scoff of disbelief—like she can’t believe this is real and happening right now, she emits a desperate wail before throwing the stick to the ground.

Bucky stomps on it for her and then throws it away.

 

 

They walk to the nearest cafeteria to get a bite to eat. She hovers in between distress and elation, sometimes vibrating in the middle of both, constantly fixing her glasses, jerking her mouth side to side, stomping randomly, groaning a lot. Bucky understands. Grief is weird. Grief consumes. She’d been in an unbalanced relationship from the start, and now stepping off the see-saw and back on solid ground for the first time in four years was going to be an _adjustment_ , to say the least.

She scuttles to the restroom likely to vomit in the middle of a panini and tomato soup combination and comes back bleary eyed and paranoid. Her nose is red, the front of her dress is wet from where she dried her hands on it. Bucky pretends he doesn’t notice anything askew because that was all he wanted from Steve after Dot left him. No sympathy, no questions, just a presence.

The food on her plate is unfinished but he goes to get her a soft-serve swirl and she starts laughing so hard there are tears plunking onto her dress. “Fuck, dude, make it stop.” She sobs. The soft-serve starts to fall apart, melting off the sides, so Bucky takes it back and runs the dripping cone over his tongue in silence before biting off the top.

“Give it time.” He says, licking a bit of sweetness from the corner of his mouth. She leans back in the chair, closing her eyes off to the stares of other students in the cafeteria.

“How much time takes away four years?”

Bucky shrugs. He didn’t know. It took him almost six months to get over Dot. He heard somewhere that it takes at least half the time of the relationship to grieve and mourn and recover, but he thinks that two years is confoundingly long. He hopes there’s not any real merit to the statement, and there probably isn’t, because it’s been seven months now and sometimes the thought of Dot makes him so angry he can’t see straight.

So he makes up some shit on the spot that sounded okay.

“Five fortnights.”

He doesn’t even fucking know what that means. It was definitely _not_ okay.

She erupts into distraught giggles, and the tears come back. He eats the rest of the cone to the sound of her strangled laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I drew from personal experience when writing the reader's relationship with Alex. Emotionally abusive relationships are so shitty. More on this in later chapters. Let me know what you think!


	5. Something Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Wanda and Pietro's Halloween party, the three of you discover a huge misunderstanding.

It’s a Friday again when Steve and Bucky sit down together at the table, breakfast sizzling on their plates as they stare at each other. Steve scoops a bit of egg white into his mouth, using a piece of bread to impale the other two eggs and smear the yolk around. Bucky starts tucking into the bacon and coffee.

“What?” He asks, after catching the blue-green stare for the _fifth_ time.

“ _You_ , what?” Steve retorts.

“Oh, come off it, Rogers!” Bucky nearly burns his tongue angrily sipping the mug and sets it down with a clink. It’d been like this all night since he came back from campus.

[Name] finally gave Steve a call and apologized for going missing for the past three weeks. She promised she’d be around more to see them, and at the end of the conversation, let it slip that she’d been with Bucky the previous Thursday, laughing about a soft-serve cone and bad relationship advice. They were watching a movie on the couch-- another rerun of _Leon: The Professional_ , finally able to spend more than ten minutes together. When Steve hung up right around the time Leon puts the grenade pin in Stansfield’s hand, the hurt blooming in his eyes during the explosion was enough to _kill_ Bucky on the spot.

Steve went back into his room soon after.  
Bucky felt so sore about it he made breakfast this morning.

“I’m not allowed to be upset, Buck?”

“What the fuck are you even upset about? Do you know?”

Steve shoves another egg in his mouth along with a torn chunk of sourdough and chews aggressively.

“Just admit you like her!” He yells, his mouthful blocking the full extent of his irritation.

“ _You_ like her!”

“Yeah, I do!”

“ _Fine_! Me too!”

 

The moment of silence that passes over them begins to settle. They blink at each other, both chewing pensively, unsure of where to take this conversation next. It’s childish, Bucky thinks, it’s childish of him to develop a crush—to develop a crush on a girl that his _best pal_ already likes—but it’s also childish of best pal to think that people can call dibs on other people anyway. Why _can’t_ he have a crush, god damn it? But the memory of Junior Homecoming tugs at his chest.

Steve is fuming. He is growing more peevish the longer Bucky takes to speak up. He _knew_ it. He knew this would happen. Bucky always dated the girls he liked. Bucky dated Angeline from his art class _and_ Christine from French class freshman year; Bucky dated Joanna from AP Chemistry sophomore year before cheating on her with some girl with braces down the street; Steve introduced Bucky to Kasey—a girl he was head over heels for—any they ended up going to Homecoming together. Steve misunderstood the entire situation and when she showed up on Bucky’s arm instead of meeting him outside like he _thought_ he had said—Steve crumbled in the boy’s restroom on the second floor.

Bucky had been completely oblivious until he found him there an hour later and put all the pieces together. He broke it off with Kasey that very night and promised Steve that he’d stop being such a “piece of shit best friend”. Bucky stopped dating girls from their high school after that and took Steve to Senior Prom where they went stag, matching suits and posed photo and all. It was his best efforts to make it up to his best pal.

They weren’t kids anymore—and Steve wasn’t a mousy little boy, but it still hurt. There’s a part of him that always hurts so aberrantly when he thinks about just how _shitty_ high school was.

“Stevie,” Bucky begins, putting his last piece of bacon on Steve’s plate. This was his way of apologizing—giving Steve his food. “Stevie, look…” He sighs as he sips his coffee, “I don’t wanna do this, pal. I’m not trying to fuck anything up with you and me. You know that. I remember high school, okay?”

The look on his face is so sad. There’s little crumbs of sourdough in his beard and he flicks it forcefully as he puts his forehead against his other palm. Steve takes a deep breath and sighs into the silence of the kitchen. His anger suddenly feels inane.

He leans forward and puts the bacon back on Bucky’s plate. Their little crispy olive branch gets passed back and forth a couple more times before they both break into grins and Steve reaches over to ruffle Bucky’s hair. When Bucky opens his mouth in a laugh, Steve shoves the piece of bacon in and huffs triumphantly. “Oh, screw it.” Steve announces, “It’s crass but that saying—what is it? Bros before hos?”

Bucky makes a face and shakes his head, biting off the dangling bit and crunching on it. The thought of Steve Rogers calling any girl a ho, for effect or otherwise, was something he could live without. Steve sheepishly rubs the back of his neck and acknowledges Bucky’s sentiment.

“God, Buck. We shouldn’t be talking about her like she’s some sort of prize. She’s a person. She’s our friend.”

“It’s way too soon, Stevie. She’s fresh out of a big relationship. She needs time.”

 

They both share a deep sigh. As Steve reaches over again to brush more crumbs out of Bucky’s beard a brief thought flits into his mind. His cheeks light up and he immediately pushes the thought away.

 

 --

Pietro sends a mass invitation out for his and Wanda’s annual Halloween Party. He punctuates the enormous run-on sentence of a paragraph with a promise of breaking out the Ouija board at 2 A.M.

Bucky and Steve show up around 8 and the house is already exploding with people and music. Wanda’s gone absolutely nuts with the decorations and there are _very_ realistic corpses strewn about on the lawn, dusty cobwebs and orange lights everywhere, and no less than seven Jack-o-lanterns lit up around the perimeter. Steve hits his head against a tissue ghost on his way inside, waving to her as she dances in the front lawn with a tall blonde man much older than her. They’re both dressed up as witches (warlock?).

They see plenty of faces, some new and some familiar—Natasha as a _very_ sacrilegious nun, Thor as a sexy… oiled-up wrestler or something like that. Steve’s wearing a simple red flannel with suspenders, dark jeans, and heavy boots. He’s holding a prop axe in his hand and has even grown out his beard for this outfit. Yep. Big lumberjack. Bucky’s gone even simpler, with an all-black outfit and toy fangs that cut his mouth uncomfortably when he sticks them in. He keeps them in his pocket instead, only bringing them out when someone asks.

There’s referees and cops, pirates, nurses—a dizzying array of sexy animals—and plenty of gag costumes. Someone’s a bloody-soaked tampon and someone else is a breathalyzer where the nozzle is placed in an extremely suggestive area.

Pietro catches them on their way through the maze and gives them both sloppy kisses on the cheek. He’s wearing a short toga that falls mid-thigh and Bucky looks away when he takes too-big strides because he’s not sure Pietro’s wearing _anything else_.

“You two! So glad you came.” A flash of metal shines from his mouth and he sticks his tongue out when they squint at it. “Like it? Got it last week with [Name].” The tongue stud glimmers under the kitchen light before he turns around and leads them to a counter lined with jello shots.

“Eat some!” He cackles madly before disappearing out the back with a few girls. The boys turn to look at each other and then the sights around them. That vile beer pong table is back, Bucky thinks, and it’s guarded heavily by Natasha and a guy they don’t recognize but their confident stance next to each other makes Bucky shudder. There’s an enormous bong in the living room being passed around and _Night of the Living Dead_ is playing mutely on the T.V. The red glow illuminating the entire house makes everything look a thousand times more sinister.

Steve takes a jello shot and hands one to Bucky before they both stick their fingers in and scoop it into their mouths, wincing immediately.

It tastes like gasoline.

There’s a loud heckling laughter from behind the counter as they stand up straight and Steve coughs into the back of his hand. The burn lingers, mixing with the faintest taste of strawberry so heavily masked that he thinks he might just be imagining it. [Name] is leaning on her elbows as she points as the boys. She’s wearing a cape over a white peasant top and black pants. She’s obviously Little Red Riding Hood. There’s a little crystal embedded atop her left nostril; it must be the piercing she got with Pietro.

“Hooolllyyyyy shit you guys. Those are so nasty, Val.” There’s a pause as she takes a long, appreciate look at Steve, noticing his beard. “Babe… You look _so_ good.” She sticks her hand in it, rubbing all around, fascinated by the prickle.

The blunt compliment brings a flush to his cheeks. She starts rubbing Bucky’s beard too, making happy noises as it scratches her palm. It’s strangely uncharacteristic of her, but the bleary red eyes and waft of vodka offers a believable explanation. They have _never_ seen her this drunk.

There’s a taller, darker-skinned girl next to her, long hair pulled up into half a bun on top of her head. She’s dressed as a gladiator, with white stripes running beneath her eyes and on her forehead. Her full lips are plump and turned upwards in a smirk as she watches the boys. She must be the maker of these jello abominations. Val.

“You had one yet, love?” Val asks, twisting a strand of her hair around her fingers before moving to stroke the red hood. [Name] shakes her head with disgust and hoists up a twine basket instead. She pulls out zip loc bags full of brownies and cake pops to Steve’s horror. He knows what these are, and he knows he’s afraid of those, too. She messily throws two squares over the counter and Steve and Bucky catch them with fumbling fingers, already feeling the jello shot coursing through them.

She sticks one between her teeth with a wicked smile, “Tooooo grandma’s house we go!” Her tongue pushes against the edge of the square as she speaks.

They both watch in shock when Val grabs the back of her neck and yanks the brownie from [Name]’s teeth with her own mouth, earning a genuinely delighted giggle in response. After catching her breath—and tumbling backwards just a little, she waits for her friend to chew the brownie completely and swallow before returning the gesture with a deep, lingering kiss, licking the bits of chocolate from her lips. There’s a mess of laughter afterwards as both of them take shots of vodka.

 

 

Steve has _no_ idea how to act as he takes Bucky into the back patio an hour later. The pot brownie has descended on them both, all 14 grams of it, all at once. Usually she only makes it with 10- which is _plenty_ , but Halloween is some sort of nightmare holiday where everyone is trying to kill them. When she tells them that they’re _extra_ potent, she’s giggling into Val’s (real name Valkyrie) neck, hands wrapped loosely around her waist, fiddling with the straps of her leather costume.

They’re cuddly all night, and Valkyrie watches the boys with mild interest and a strange mask of possibly, Steve doesn’t know, but it looks like amusement. By the time the girls are kissing sloppily against the kitchen counter in the middle of dancing, Steve sweeps Bucky off with a firm grip and they stand on the edge of the back patio together, avoiding the crowd.

The background is a huge blur of orange fuzziness and midnight blue shadows. Bucky sees the panic in Steve’s eyes as he snaps his suspenders and get stuck in a loop rubbing his hair and then rubbing his beard. “Steve, you’re high as shit.”

“Did I miss something? She’s got a girlfriend? What happened to time?” He throws the toy axe into the bushes out of frustration and gets a few yelps of surprise from the people sitting next to the hedges. Bucky only pats his friend on the shoulder comfortingly.

“Who knows? She’s having fun. It’s good for her. Stop freaking yourself out just because she touched your face.”

Steve mulls it over as Bucky scrubs his beard, imitating the previous action that got him all riled up. It’s been a week since him and Bucky talked about it in the kitchen. He’s seen her since, and all three of them have had lunch, but the conversation was always about school or work or her poems. She’s never mentioned _this_. It makes him feel a little discouraged, even though he thinks Bucky is right. He wants her to be happy. There’s some part of him that still holds on to hope. It’s all misty and fades in and out. He realizes he’s physically wobbling.

Steve groans as the background shifts back into focus. He can feel his eyes burn. Okay, he thinks, he’ll try. Bucky’s encouraging grin peers at him in the darkness and he starts to feel like himself again. Steve rubs his face one last time for good measure and places his heavy arm over Bucky’s shoulder.

“Okay. You ready to try beer pong again? Even if we’re messed up… Buck… I’m real messed up.”

Bucky’s rumbling laughter next to him is all the affirmation he needs.

\---

 

It’s 11:30 when you stumble to the living room and plop yourself down next to Natasha for a break from the wildness all around. She’s half-way in Clint Barton’s lap, hands tangled in his hair before she notices you. Clint stops nipping at her neck and coughs a little to draw her attention away, but she shushes him with a finger. A fishnet-encased foot pokes you on the knee, tapping the rhythm of a rock song in the background, asking silent questions. You only smile at her because you know what she’s wondering. It’s the same thing everyone else wonders.

 _Are you okay_? _How are you doing_?

The answer’s always the same (I’m fine!) but it’s never really true. You’re _not_ fine. It’s already been a month and you’re still floundering about in Ground Zero. Sometimes you wake up and think that it’s still a nightmare. Sometimes you forgive yourself. Sometimes you punch in Alex’s number and have to fight _really_ hard not to call him. He still leaves you voicemails occasionally, weeping into the phone, and it takes all that you have not to call back and comfort him.

It’s stupid because you _know_ he’s a lying piece of shit who’s still lying. But it fucking hurts so much that you just want it to stop.

Which is exactly why you’ve been so… wild for the past four weeks. You’re practically Pietro. You want to laugh and cry when you think about it because it is so particularly _not_ who you are, but it’s something _else_ , and maybe that’s enough. When you wake up in the morning and want to rip your hair out and scream until you’ve lost your voice, you get on fucking _Tinder_. When you want to cut your own heart out of your chest, you get your nose pierced with Pietro. When you’re in bed at 3 AM and can’t sleep because your body hurts so much from being sad, you smoke massive amounts of weed.

It helps you eat. It helps you sleep.

You turn your head to watch Valkyrie in the kitchen, talking to Thor, smirking that characteristically mischievous smile of hers. You met her a week ago on a dating app. Her profile said _you know what I want_ and it was frightening. She was forward, she was blunt, and she was… beautiful. You’d never been with a woman, and why the fuck not? Your world had always been Alex. The only time you thought about otherwise was when he’d bring up the possibility of a threesome but always recanted when you asked about the fairness of also having another man in the mix. Asshole.

 

She was the fourth date you went on, and the only one that stuck. The first one was a very nice guy who was a Radio-Television-Film major, but you did not click with him whatsoever. It was a mishandled experience, if anything, because there was too much personal information thrown out in the first five minutes and you walked yourself home thoroughly embarrassed. It was your first date in almost five years. It was expected.

So you tried again. The second guy was some boy whose paper you’d edited in the Writing Lab. He found you after asking around about your e-mail address and convinced you to go out with him for coffee. He boasted that he travelled to Europe often and felt mighty proud of himself for not wanting to party in Paris and instead see the Louvre. You asked him who paid for his trips and when he fessed that it was his parents you laughed so hard you cried. But you slept with him anyway? It was _okay_ , not quite fulfilling but not unfulfilling either. At least you came out of it knowing two things:

You didn’t like uppity rich boys. You didn’t _dislike_ casual sex.

One, it fulfilled a physical (maybe even emotionally validating) need, even if the fulfillment was a little blasé. Two, you didn’t think about fucking Alex when you were fucking someone else. That was enough.

The third date was a girl. Your first experience with a woman. She was _so_ tall, and lovely, and had a bearded dragon at her apartment. She read your poetry and held your hand. But at the end of the night she admitted that her boyfriend was looking for a third addition to their relationship and you couldn’t stop thinking about Alex’s selfish requests for threesomes. So you walked yourself home once again.

Valkyrie terrified you. She met you at a beer garden and drank four stouts to your one. She held your hand across the table and sneered at boys who gawked.

“I’m not looking for a _thing_.” She had said as soon as you’d both sat down with your drinks, accent thick and strong. “Hope you’re okay with that?” You nodded, because you weren’t sure what you were looking for either. It probably wasn’t a _thing_. You were on the same page, you promised.

Conversation with her was so easy. She was an open book full of strange stories and adventures, lots of camping trips and skinned knees. Fishing, hunting, wild outdoors, scaring bears. You, in turn, gave her your brief story- long relationship, bad boyfriend, struggling sanity. At the end of your second beer (and her _sixth_ ), she leaned over the bench table and held her hand to the back of your head.

“Gonna kiss ya now.”

You could only nod once more.

You went home with her that night and then went back to your apartment _thoroughly_ fulfilled.

You’d been seeing her here and there ever since. She kept to her word- it wasn’t a _thing_ , and you kept to yours. She’d come over sometimes and scold you for not eating before throwing you on the bed and stripping you. Afterwards, you’d follow her to the store and grab a sandwich under her watchful gaze. In her own way, it was sweet. As sweet as she could be, you think. In-between your time with Valkyrie were a couple more hookups with one-night-stands. All _just fine_.

 

 

You turn back towards the kitchen and watch her run her hand through Thor’s newly cut hair, fingering the detail of the markings against his scalp. Her other hand rubs circles on his massive bicep. He’s flexing. It’s so stupid you want to laugh.

You feel nothing when he leans down and licks the shell of her ear. That was good. You _had_ kept your word. A little smile finds its way to your face when she catches your eye across the expanse of the dining room and winks. You wink back. She disappears with Thor into an empty room.

Natasha eyes the entire interaction and lets out a low whistle when a text message comes up on your phone from Valkyrie. A single suggestive phrase. _You coming?_

Clint is about to have an aneurysm, you think, because he’s so frustrated that Natasha’s not paying attention to him he’s turning blue. She rolls her eyes when you gesture to her ignored boytoy and yanks on his ear until he yelps. Thor’s incredibly fit abs pop up in a second message and you slam the screen so hard against your thigh that it smarts. Natasha and Clint watch you with smirks.

“Oh god.” You sweat, “Am I? Coming? Going?” There were four vodka shots and 14 grams of pot slipstreaming inside of you. It sounded like a _fine_ idea somewhere in the current. With all the new things you’ve been doing the last month—this one could be the perfect cherry to top it off. Or pop open the floodgates. Or pop your threesome cherry.

“Oh, you’ll be coming if you go.” Clint’s grin is a mile wide.

He’s not _wrong_. You know from personal experience that Val is a very giving lover, and a very demanding lover. You know at the end of every tryst you’re thoroughly satisfied and have forgotten all about your personal woes. It was what you liked about her, after all. And Thor, oh _fuck_ , Thor could pick you up by the elbow and sit you right on his face; it’d be the easiest bicep curl he’d ever have to do.

You give it half a serious thought before turning back around to the indistinguishable mass of people kitchen, trying to gather the courage to cross the threshold of the dining room. Your eyes land squarely on Steve’s white undershirt too tight against his frame. The flannel has long been discarded and you don’t see it anywhere. Steve stumbles to the back of the couch and his large hand lands on the soft leather. The suspenders that were on his shoulders earlier in the night have slipped off, hanging uselessly against his waist. Your shitty brain thinks, _God he looks good_. You’re slightly sad that he bats for the other team and that he’s one of your better friends because in this fucked-up state you’re in, you’d probably try it.

Something starts burning in your hazy consciousness- blurring the lines of your desires. Flashes of Thor’s bare abs, Val’s aggressive kisses, Steve’s big hands, that flannel tied in a knot with your wrists caught inside—wherever it might be.

“What’s up, guys?”

He looks like a fucking Abercrombie and Fitch model. He looks like an extremely dark-side version of an Abercrombie and Fitch model: golden hair mussed up, eyes red and angry from pot, mouth all pink and open—completely wet. And he says _what’s up guys_ to a couch of people waist-deep in debauched conversation in that completely oblivious Steve way that makes your spine tingle.

 _Fuck_.

“Uh--” is all you’re able to manage until Clint snaps your mouth shut for you.

“Thor and Val invited our girl to the party. Think she should join?”

“What party?”

Natasha cackles at his innocence. You burrow deeper into the cushion, watching fuzzy shapes of people outside the window. Your head continues the struggle upstream to solid ground and you have to close your eyes to keep everything still.

Bucky’s figure comes through the door the second you try opening them. Ah, there’s that red flannel, neatly wrapped around his waist. God, they’re so cute together, you think. Two ridiculously handsome people who love each other. Your heart swells the same time your stomach clenches and your fuzzy stupid little head spins to top it off.

“Wha’d I miss?!” Bucky’s nearly screaming it and he quickly puts a hand over his mouth at the realization of his own volume. “Sorry-- outdoor, indoor, volume confusion.” There’s a hiccup and a sluggish smile. The glare you send to Clint and Natasha is effectively ignored as Clint pipes up once again.

“Tell her she should go get her brains fucked out by Thor—oof!” your palm lands on the back of his head in a loud smack but he continues anyway, taking a note from Bucky’s book and shouts, “AND VAL.”

The scattered groups of people around glance over at the noise and topic of conversation and you’re so close to the edge of death by embarrassment that you pull your cape around your body and your hood down until you’re a lumpy red cocoon.

“Thor?” Steve’s voice.

“ _and_ Val?” Bucky’s voice.

“Unf. Unf. Unf.” Clint again.

 

You’re on the verge of tears when you emerge to their open mouths.

“She’s _not_ your girlfriend?”

“No! Just a hookup.” You’re a little sour, elated mood turned into something darker-- jealous. “Not all of us are domestically blissful living with our partners.” They look at each other in confusion and you start to grow more frustrated the longer they tilt their heads in opposite directions.

“What?” You snap. “I’m figuring it out, okay? Like, giving this "single-life" thing time and just figuring it out! Not that you’d know! You guys are perfect together. Fuck this! Okay, I’m _going in there_.”

“Wait, _what_?” Steve asks again, putting his hand on your shoulder when you shoot up with a wobbly misstep. He’s holding you so tight and slaps the phone out of your hand when he sees you getting ready to send a reply. “Do you think Bucky and I are... dating?”

“You’re always... together...” You point stupidly to the flannel around Bucky’s waist—who catches your phone as it tumbles to the floor. “There’s so much... touching...?” Steve gapes at your finger before snatching the flannel back and tying it around his own waist. “You! When we first met, we talked about “Nara”! The fucking.... poem about my _gay friend!_ I just fucking thought..  You introduced him as your _best pal_. It wasn’t a code?!”

There’s flashes of memories in your head of Steve’s hand in Bucky’s hair. Loving gazes shared, pats on the back that lingered too long, hugs, when you’d gone out to lunch together and they shared a drink—straw and all. You swear to God you’ve seen Bucky stick a whole brownie pop in his mouth once and then change his mind half-way and give it to Steve.

“Holy shit.” Bucky, Natasha, and Clint all breathe together at the same time. They're all staring at you like you've grown another five heads, or perhaps another asshole.

"Oh my god. I'm an asshole, aren't I?" You murmur, the heavy realization of your misunderstanding dawning on you.

 

As if things couldn’t go even more sideways, Pietro tears open the front door and waves a tiny plastic bag with little paper squares in your faces.

“Presents! For my favorite little threesome!” He screams.

You’re too mortified and afraid to ask him what he means.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOP there it is!   
> And now our POV will settle on being in 2nd-person for the rest of the fic. There will be a lot more debauchery and sex going forward. Hope you're ready for it! :^)


	6. Dissolve Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chaotic, drug-fueled, NSFW chapter.

You come over the morning after, a Saturday, glasses pushed up high on your nose-bridge, wearing an old sweater and jeans. The knock is so slight and pitiful that they boys think it must be a first-time Jehovah’s Witness before they hear the quiet “Hey guys?”

Bucky opens the door, leaning on the frame as you scratch the back of your head. He’s dressed casually, denim shorts and a t-shirt.

“Just fucking come in.” Bucky tugs on the front of your sweater and shuts the door, making you pitch forward with a shriek into the living room. Steve’s leaning against the couch, biting into an entire orange by the mouthful like a psychopath, rind peeled and discarded on the coffee table.

“Hi.” He says. The orange is nearly invisible in his huge hand.

“Hey... I’m... here to address the um, elephant in the room?”

“Yeah?” Bucky blinks a couple of times, leaning forward, smiling an insufferably cheeky smile.

“I... am so fucking sorry... I thought you guys were...”

“Dating?” Steve says.

“Fucking?” Bucky says.

You pull the hood down over your face until only the smallest line of your chin remains in the open. Your voice comes out muffled behind the thick fabric—a wail of apologies and too-fast rambling about what led up to this point. “But can you blame me? I mean, okay, yes, it was presumptuous, and I shouldn’t have stereotyped your close friendship as some homoerotic fantasy, but you guys! You practically eat out of each other’s _mouths_!”

“We’ve done that since we were kids.” Bucky pulls the hood from your head and fixes your glasses when they tilt in the aftermath. “It’s _your_ fault you’re never actually around long enough when you come over. Or ever around long enough to… know _anything_.” His huff makes you whimper, and you shove both hands in the hoodie’s pocket. It brings a rush of guilt to your burning face because you are _so_ fucking sorry.

As if to drive his point all the way home he opens his mouth from across the room and Steve tosses a half-bitten wedge of orange straight in.

“Okay. I'm an ass. And you guys are _showoffs_.”

There aren’t enough words for you to express just how sorry you are, you think. It feels so ridiculous now that it’s in the open. Even though to you, at the time, running out the door before the clock struck 11 was just another day of your life with Alex, to everyone else it must have been the _stupidest_ thing. Your face burns with embarrassment.

“Steve and I fell asleep on the Twins’ couch the other day—” he’s interrupted by a sustained buzz on your phone before another series of vibrations. He takes the hood off your face. “Are you…? Gonna pick that up?”

You blow hair out of your mouth and grumble. “No.” It’s just Alex again, calling.

“Anyway, I’m here with a present. A token of my sincerest apologies.” You pull out the familiar plastic bag from last night, previously tucked between Pietro’s two fingers. There are three brightly colored squares separated by the smallest perforations inside of the clear container. You look from Steve to Bucky, hopeful that they’ll take your small token of apology.

“Wanna get real fucked up and forget about my dumb shit for like, ten hours?”

 

You’d gotten away with not having this conversation last night by bolting up from the couch and snatching the bag from Pietro’s hand. Unfortunately, you were _extremely_ drunk and knocked right into him, making the both of you tumble straight out the door. Your head went into his nose and he was so pissed off afterwards that he stomped into his room cursing you the entire way.

The night that was going sideways was completely flipped upside down when Pietro found Valkyrie riding Thor like a damn mechanical bull in his computer chair. He kicked everyone out just before midnight.

 

Steve lowers the temperature and sets the room a couple degrees colder than usual just in case the three of you get too hot during the trip. Afterwards, he fills up three glasses of water and turns on the T.V. to hook his phone up to the speaker, playing soft music. Then you all sit cross-legged on the ground around the coffee table, zip loc in the middle of the wood.

“Have you done it before?” You ask.

Steve nods with a secretive smirk. Bucky shakes his head. You raise your eyebrows.   
“You’re really chill about it for someone who’s never tripped? And Steve… I would have never guessed.”

“Rugby boys.” Steve shrugs. “Bucky picked me up towards the end of my first trip. He’s sort of familiar.” A wide grin breaks out across his face at the memory of Bucky driving him back home as he rattles off observations about what the lights looked like streaking across the windshield.

“Well… Bucky, are you in a good place? Mentally? We shouldn’t trip if you’re—”

“What about _you_?” Bucky turns the question around, “You fell down yesterday, you were so drunk.”

You shrug, imitating Steve’s nonchalant reply. “Nah fuck it. Let’s get _messed up_.”

Steve reaches out to stop you but you’ve already torn off the three tabs and spread them out in front. He has a dull ache in his chest that this might not be a good idea, but the happiness in your eyes stops him.

“Guys. I’m so excited. You guys are the _coolest_. I’m sorry about … everything, I think. Can we just start over? With acid?”

Steve knows better, he thinks, he knows that LSD should be taken very carefully, with foresight and planning. If your state of mind is dark, the trip will veer right off the tracks and burrow itself so deeply in your conscious you won’t emerge from the hollow for another ten hours. When you do, you might be so changed that you never feel the same again. He knows that the potential bliss of LSD could be a magical experience. After his trip with the boys from rugby, Steve felt different for a _long_ time.

But you’re smiling from ear-to-ear, fingers tapping a fast beat against the coffee table. He doesn’t want to stop you.

 

You stick the bright blue tab on your tongue and it disappears into your mouth. Steve does the same, watching Bucky to gauge his reaction. He follows suit soon after and the three of you take large gulps of water to wash it down. There’s sly smiles that grow on your faces.

“Okay, here we go.”

\---

In the middle of listening to one of your newer poems, Steve feels it happening. It’s been half an hour since he’s eaten the tab and his head begins to feel all wooly. Your voice has suddenly become perfumed somehow, and it starts sounding so pleasurable to his ears and he can’t help but smile as you recite the words from your phone.

 _A herd of shepherds to herd the sheep,_  
Sleep now, my only one.  
Broken sweethearts who sleep apart,  
Both still pine for the other’s side spine…

He’s daydreaming of lush green fields as you read.

You stop and blink a couple of times owlishly, eyelashes meeting and separating deliberately slow. Bucky starts to see it too and his lips are pressing together and pulling apart, as if he’s discovering his mouth for the first time. The three of you stop dead in your tracks, separate paths all merging at once.

“Steve, you look enormous.” You say as stillness falls upon you.

“Steve… you _are_ enormous.” Bucky supplies, tongue coming out to lick his bottom lip. He does it again, giving it a soft bite, just to be sure. His lips feel swollen and heavy.

Steve laughs and falls over on top of the table, pressing his face to the cool wood. The chill brings a relief to his abruptly warm body. He hears his heart thumping in his chest and feels it too, vibrating against the table. Bucky puts his hand in Steve’s hair, fingers moving the sleek flaxen strands around with a chuckle. He palms it for a couple of seconds until Steve turns his head to look up. His cheeks are flushed pink, the tingles from his head rushing all around his body.

“Feels nice. I get it now.” Bucky laughs as he lets go. He realizes as much as Steve plays with his hair, he’s never done it back. It’s a much different texture, so fine and soft, whereas he’s always felt that his own hair is coarser. He moves to do it again. Steve watches him with glassy eyes, closing them with a pleased sigh when Bucky returns.

“Can you keep reading?” Steve asks happily. He wants to go back to the green pasture.

 

The three of you spend the next hour enthralled by the beginning distortions. Steve isn’t allowed to stand up because he’s too _big_ and Bucky can’t _deal with that shit right now_. You’re repeatedly rubbing your fingertips together, too distracted by the grooves of your prints to finish any poems. You always try, but the words are shifting constantly with colorful vibrations and you can’t keep your eyes still long enough to maintain them. You laugh about nothing and everything and try to remember to keep drinking water.

 

In the second hour, you take off your sweater because you start to sweat too much. The flannel underneath gets pushed up to your elbows and the top button pops open. You flutter the hem a few times to cool yourself down. It’s one of the most annoying physical side effects of acid.

Bucky lies down on the couch, listening to the plunks of the background piano, tapping his fingers along. Steve is beneath him, fingers digging into tufts of carpet, mesmerized by the patterns of thread. You lie by him, head on his sternum, making a T shape with your bodies.

“How do you feel, Buck?” Steve asks, walking his hand up to his friend’s hair by habit.

“Warm. All funny.” Bucky grimaces as he pulls his hair away from his neck. The trip is pleasant, sort of, but Bucky’s not sure if this is how he’s supposed to feel. He knows other than being a little woozy and happy, he’s really, really, hot.

Upon hearing his tone, you shoot up and go to turn the AC down more. On your way back you refill his glass of water. Bucky frowns as he swallows it, the gulps feel bulbous in his throat and solid like rocks in his stomach. “Feels funny too.” He frowns.

Steve presses the back of his hand to Bucky’s forehead, focusing his eyes as much as he can to care for his friend. You’re by his side instantly, placing both your hands on the couch to steady yourself from the movement of the room. “Can I change the music? I think this might help.”

You look worried, Bucky thinks, but he can’t really tell. You sound quiet one second and loud the next and his heart is beating so fast that most of the time it drowns everything else out. He imagines your voice like a slinky that’s tumbling downstairs in slow motion and he’s the child that’s let it fall from his grasp. The more he tries to hold onto what he can understand, the faster it gets chased away.

He watches you hand Steve the phone to unlock it and he thinks that you look so _interesting_. The shape of your face is bizarre and beautiful. Your eyes are big marbles that roll under his scrutiny. He laughs suddenly, feeling elated that you’re talking to him. It sets off Steve too.

The sound of soft waves fills the room as you place the phone back down on the table, quieting the volume until it’s barely noticeable. Bucky takes a shuddering breath and smiles again.

 

In the third hour, you can’t stop shaking your leg. You begin to feel restless and the boys notice. There’s a whirlwind of energy brewing inside of you, even though it’s not quite genuine. Steve asks if you want to go on a walk and you say no but your damn leg keeps bouncing.

He stands up tentatively and breathes a sigh of relief when no one panics at his size. He asks if you want to go look around the apartment, just to get it out. “Let’s stretch our legs.” He offers. You eagerly leap up after him and he walks you through. Bucky follows too. You surf down the hallway, balancing on rolling carpet waves that scratch your feet, grabbing onto Steve’s back belt loop to steady yourself.

In his room, he shows you his sketches of the campus. There are drawings of Bucky watching T.V. and reading books. You’re enthralled by the way Steve draws Bucky’s jaw- wide, sharp, strong. You know you shouldn’t have touched it, but you trace your finger along the detailed sketch and feel Bucky’s beard prickle your fingers against it. Your imagination is hallucinating experiences against your skin. There’s chalk and oil pastel landscapes that quickly captivates you as soon as Steve hands them over, but you keep turning back to the picture of Bucky watching T.V.

 

In Bucky’s room, he shows you his books. It’s mostly all he has. There are also some weights by the corner which he picks up easily and turns around in his hands. You look through his closet and pull down a thin gray t-shirt before pressing it to your face, savoring the cool fabric against your sweat-slick skin.

Your flannel has become excruciatingly heavy. It feels wet and tight.

“Can I wear this please?” You ask breathlessly, already halfway unbuttoned.

They turn around as you slip it on and sigh in relief.

 

In the fourth hour, Steve tries not to close his eyes.

Every time they shut, he feels like he’s on a roller coaster ride of blooming paisley shapes and surging hills and plunging valleys. There are colors that move like he’s never seen before. When his eyes are open, he feels more grounded and safer. Even if the once-familiar pale blue walls melt and coax him to jump in.

He’s moved to the couch now, feet resting on the coffee table. Bucky’s on the floor facing him, you are on Bucky’s left, leaning against his shoulder as he’s wrapped an arm around you. You’re reading again, able to focus for the time being. The new poem is sad, and Steve has to close his eyes and resign himself to the roller coaster so that he doesn’t see your lips clinging onto those forlorn syllables. The stanzas that flow make his chest hurt.

 _Forty-eight thousand seats bleat and roars_  
for my memories of you.  
Matador, estocada, you’re my bloodsport.

When Steve’s eyes are open, he’s looking at the two most beautiful people he’s ever seen.

They glow and vibrate against each other, breathing short breaths, making soft noises.

 

In the fifth hour, all three of you lie on the floor. The couch and coffee table are pushed up against the wall and Steve and Bucky bring out their blankets to put on the itchy carpet. All the shades are drawn, and the room is dark and cool. You gaze into the ceiling and see the cosmos.

The boys listen to the sounds from the downstairs neighbor- unsure if the language they hear is truly foreign or if it’s another hallucination. The smell of coffee hangs in the air, but no one’s made any. Your hands have become inexplicably linked, and no one can remember when it happened, but you don’t break apart. Bucky holds Steve and Steve holds you.

The night sky is flowering above, stars coming out to glow and twinkle.

Bucky is upset one second and gleeful the next. He feels himself begin to panic, but then it strips itself away and leaves him exultant and raw. His hand fits perfectly in Steve’s. He doesn’t understand why.

 

In the sixth hour, you try to make conversation. It’s hard, though, since you’re all pressed up against each other in funny shapes and can hardly keep a train of thought going for more than a few minutes. Bucky’s head is on Steve’s shoulder. Your left leg is on top of Bucky’s left leg as you lie on your side facing the two of them, using Bucky’s arm as a pillow. You feel like you’re all floating, watching yourselves lounge in this oddly intimate pattern.

You stare at Bucky’s profile in front of Steve’s, a mountain range in front of another mountain range. He’s intensely trying to find an anchor in the darkness that looms ahead, eyes flitting back and forth for anything to hold on to.

“What was it like for you?” You suddenly ask. The thought of Alex finds its way into your brain. Your voice sounds like crunchy autumn leaves to them- hoarse and dry.

“It was bad.” Bucky’s echoes in the chamber of your fuzzy thoughts. The leaves are wet now, snowfall drifting on top of them.

You accept it and let it hang in the air. What else could he say, anyway? All break ups were bad. Even if it feels so far and trivial to him right now. Dot’s face looks like an artificially dyed daisy when it thinks about it, petals falling off and being plucked away. He can’t recall her smile, but he thinks it might have been red.

“He still calls me.”

Steve lets go of a sharp exhale to Bucky’s right side, turning his head, “What do you do?” he asks. His breath tickles Bucky, who laughs uncharacteristically shrill.

“I pick up sometimes. I hate that I do that.”

The confession changes the room almost immediately. Hot wet droplets of lava fall onto Bucky’s arm and rolls off in burning streaks. It evokes the smell of summer rain in his nose. You’re immobile, staring across Bucky’s chest and into Steve’s eyes as he watches. Bucky bends his elbow just enough to tangle his hand in your hair where he feels all his fingers get lost in the bramble of sweet rose and blackberry.

Steve reaches over and strokes your cheek after each new tear, big crystal droplets against his thumbs. He wipes them over and over again until you stop crying.

“It’s okay.” They both say.

You watch them both turn at the same time. They blur together like the constellation of Gemini, Castor and Pollux, moving in union against the purple and navy night. The afterimage of their faces twinkle and shine at you, full of grace and wonder.

 

They try to eat in the seventh hour. Everything feels wrong.

“We should have done this before it hit.” Steve says, “I always forget about eating.”

“I hate this.” Bucky laments, chewing slowly on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, “It’s all over my hands. It’s stuck to my mouth. I’m going to suffocate.” The peanut butter is a landslide of mud against his tongue, the jelly lumpy rainwater pushing it between his teeth. The bread is feeble, crumbling soil, swept in the current. His jaws feel like tired, stuttering gears, his digestive system, a broken machine.

“No, you won’t.” You wipe a bit of jelly from your mouth, “Just one more bite. All of us.” The phone suddenly buzzes from the coffee table and you move to look.

Two pairs of blue eyes snap up in warning and you suddenly feel terrified and sit back down, on the verge of tears again.

Bucky tosses his sandwich into the trash and returns to the blanket. Steve does the same to his. You remain, prostrate, with half of yours left, pushing it agonizingly slow into your mouth before chewing.

You’ve become stuck. The trip has descended into ruinous territory and the boys can see it. Your eyes wander the room, but you see nothing at all, fixated only on the afterimage of Alex in your mind. His ghostly touch grips your entire being and you begin to tremble.

They sit over you on the blanket and watch you struggle to concentrate. Steve puts his hand back over your left one. Bucky puts his over your right. You squeeze them but the tears continue. You feel like a misplaced object in the world, like the Velveteen Rabbit trying to become something real, desperately internalizing a boy’s love. The weight of your years with him begins to cover you up in dirt and worms, festering soil patches crawling with insects.

“If you don’t stop, Bucky will take his shirt back.” Steve cautions. His eyes peer at you through the dried roots and dead leaves. You shake and return to the present.. He’s at least lucid enough to remember what to do. When someone gets lost down a trail, leading them back to the main path was more like a game of distractions. He leans over until he can count each eyelash. Bucky tugs on your ear to get your attention.

“Hey, I ain’t afraid to wrassle a girl for it. That’s my favorite shirt.”

You start giggling so much they’re not sure if the new tears are from sadness or not but they don’t ask. You couldn’t give them an answer anyway- the two feelings have merged into one big contradiction. The droplets are falling into your ears and you wiggle your head to rub them out. Steve watches your nose crinkle and suddenly the rushing stream of thoughts he’s been holding back for the last three hours comes pouring out like a flood.

“Iwannakissyou”

 

Bucky bursts out in a fit of laughter because Steve sounds like waves crashing against the shore. The leftover salt spray stings his tongue and dribbles down his chest. The idea is drawing a shape in his mind, tunneling like a parasite, exhilarating and bursting with promise. Bucky can already taste it. The possibility alone makes his body thrum. His dry mouth grows hungry.

You look from Steve to Bucky and find your own reflection in their eyes. Steve pulls you up so you can sit between them.

“Can I kiss you?” He’s breathing too hard, but he doesn’t know how to stop. Bucky places his hand on the back of your neck and rubs your head lovingly.

When Steve leans in, you find yourself drawn to him like a magnet, the pull of his gravity too enthralling and powerful to resist. Your mouths are slightly open and your tongues touch upon impact. He’s sugary like a honeycomb, wet and sticky, rolling down your throat. His tongue is warm and it moves against yours in a hurry, eager to explore. The two of you get lost in each other’s whimpers and moans.

In the front of your mind, Alex’s face flashes angrily like a hysterical light-show, neon beams of rainbow colors, screaming at you to stop. Then suddenly, he’s gone. And you can’t even remember what he looks like anymore.

Steve is gasping for breath as he follows the white rabbit further and further into the dark. His hand reaches for Bucky, pulling it into his lap. Bucky kisses Steve’s shoulder, mouth happy.

The rabbit is coaxing Bucky to follow. The tunnel transforms into a labyrinth that leads somewhere desirable and feverish, you’re all fumbling limbs and cries as you remove each other’s shirts and belts until everyone is in their smallest layer, cool air washing over flushed skin.

You’re suddenly thinking about the picture of Bucky in Steve’s room, feeling that imagined bristle of his jaw, and you find yourself pitching forward to crawl into his lap. His kiss stings with desire, and bursts into kaleidoscope shapes and patterns inside of your mouth. His beard rubs against your face, fuzzy, scented with him. Steve is behind you, hands at your hips, squeezing your flesh. You’re trying to speak but you can’t, falling back into Bucky’s kisses each time you think you can find a breadcrumb trail to follow.

Bucky grinds upward, rubbing himself against your core, so fucking hot and hard in his boxers that it startles you. Steve is a mass of hands and lips, finding every part of you to kiss and touch. He acts like a blind man, fervently reading the braille goosebumps of your flesh with his palms, muttering filthy phrases as if he’s parsed them from your own flesh.

Perhaps he has. You’re unraveling in his hands, trembling to every syllable. You start to believe them too as he begins to proselytize. He’s become your very own prophet, leading you to the promised land of feeling and flesh.

 _You’re so good. So fucking hot. I want to feel you. I want to worship you. I want to know every bit of you_.

Lewd words slide from his tongue and travel up every single synapse that fires off in your brain. The stuttering that falls from your mouth eggs him on. Time has melted away, its very concept nonexistent to the three of you now.

Steve Rogers moves in the dark like a predator well-versed in the night. He adjusts you on Bucky, pressing his hand to your lower back and guiding you forward. His other hand puts Bucky’s fingers onto your hips, placing them over the fabric of your cotton panties. He’s on his knees, bent down, kissing your neck, erection rubbing against your back through his boxers.

When you moan against Bucky’s groin, Steve echoes it back to you. The three of you are swaying in union, rubbing, grinding, groaning and all lost in the sea of desire and ecstasy. The floor no longer exists, the sky has overtaken your surroundings and drenched you in starlight.

Bucky removes your bra and fills his hands with your breasts, busying his mouth on the skin of your neck. You shuffle against the two of them indiscriminately, desperate for more friction. Steve’s hand slides in-between your legs and rubs against your underwear before finding his way inside of the soft cotton.

“Fuck me.” You plead, wavering between the cusp of reality and fantasy as you slide your core up and down his two fingers. The notches of his middle and ring fingers press against your clit, smearing your fluids all over his palm. Your eyelids are so heavy. Bucky’s afterimage is blurring red and blue, halos of energy and color, shuffling like a deck of cards. He growls, a lustful and burning god.

“Fuck me.” You’re not sure if the words you’re saying are even real. They feel leaden and broken on your tongue, but you know you want them fulfilled. “Fuck me, please. Please.”

You feel Steve slide your glasses from your ears. You feel Bucky taking your slick panties off. You feel yourself catch fire and explode into a glittering array of stardust, scattering against the sky backdrop of two delirious boys.

 

 

When your atoms find themselves across the galaxy and reform, you awaken from the soft, hot earth with a crackle of electricity.

The blanket crumples against your thighs. You’re somewhat whole again and mostly lucid. You blink in the darkness to see two nude and sleeping bodies in each other’s embrace. You find and slip on your clothes among the discarded pile. It’s three in the morning. Your entire being hurts and between your legs sits a dull ache.

You’ve been at Steve and Bucky’s apartment for sixteen hours.

\---

The door closing shakes the boys and they jolt awake in the living room with a shared gasp. It takes them a moment to get their bearings, hands patting the blanket to find each other. Steve tentatively scratches the skin of Bucky’s thigh, starting a silent conversation of simple touches. Bucky returns it with a hand on Steve’s elbow.

They sigh together.

“ _Shit_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was one of the craziest things I've ever written. I really liked how it turned out, and I hope you do too!! Steve can definitely be *my* prophet any day. Phew.


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